F 

15 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


GIFT 


Class 


IZHH 


SCOTCH-IRISH  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


BY 


REV.  A.  L.  PERRY,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

PBOFESSOR  OF  HISTORY  AND  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  IN  WILLIAMS  COLLEGE, 
WILLIAM  STOWN,  MASS. 


BOSTON: 

PRINTED  BY  J.    S.   GUSHING  &  CO. 
1891, 


COPYRIGHT,  1891, 
BY  ARTHUR  LATHAM  PERRY. 


Typography  by  J.  S.  dishing  &  Co.,  Boston. 
Presswork  by  Berwick  &  Smith,  Boston. 


BEAD  BEFORE  THE  SCOTCH-IRISH  SOCIETY  OF  AMERICA,  AT 

PITTSBURGH,  PENN.,  MAY  29,  1890;    AND  HERE 

REPRINTED  WITH  THEIR  CONSENT. 


228267 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW  ENGLAND. 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  BRETHREN  OF  THE  SOCIETY  — 

The  Scotch-Irish  did  not  enter  New  England  unheralded.  Early 
in  the  spring  of  1718  Rev.  Mr.  Boyd  was  dispatched  from  Ulster  to 
Boston  as  an  agent  of  some  hundreds  of  those  people  who  expressed 
a  strong  desire  to  remove  to  New  England,  should  suitable  encour 
agement  be  afforded  them.  His  mission  was  to  Governor  Shute,  of 
Massachusetts,  then  in  the  third  year  of  his  administration  of  that 
colony,  an  old  soldier  of  King  William,  a  Lieutenant-Colonel  under 
Marlborough  in  the  wars  of  Queen  Anne,  and  wounded  in  one  of 
the  great  battles  in  Flanders.  Mr.  Boyd  was  empowered  to  make 
all  necessary  arrangements  with  the  civil  authorities  for  the  recep 
tion  of  those  whom  he  represented,  in  case  his  report  of  the  state  of 
things  here  should  prove  to  be  favorable. 

As  an  assurance  to  the  governor  of  the  good  faith  and  earnest 
resolve  of  those  who  sent  him,  Mr.  Boyd  brought  an  engrossed 
parchment  twenty-eight  inches  square,  containing  the  following 
memorial  to  his  excellency,  and  the  autograph  names  of  the  heads 
of  the  families  proposing  to  emigrate :  "  We  whose  names  are 
underwritten,  Inhabitants  of  ye  North  of  Ireland,  Doe  in  our  own 
names,  and  in  the  names  of  many  others,  our  Neighbors,  Gentlemen, 
Ministers,  Farmers,  and  Tradesmen,  Commissionate  and  appoint  our 
trusty  and  well  beloved  friend,  the  Eeverend  Mr.  William  Boyd,  of 
Macasky,  to  His  Excellency,  the  Eight  Honorable  Collonel  Samuel 
Suitte,  Governour  of  New  England,  and  to  assure  His  Excellency  of 
our  sincere  and  hearty  Inclination  to  Transport  ourselves  to  that 
very  excellent  and  renowned  Plantation  upon  our  obtaining  from 
His  Excellency  suitable  incouragement.  And  further  to  act  and 
Doe  in  our  Names  as  his  prudence  shall  direct.  Given  under  our 
hands  this  26th  day  of  March,  Anno  Dom.  1718." 

To  this  brief  but  explicit  memorial,  three  hundred  and  nineteen 
names  were  appended,  all  but  thirteen  of  them  in  fair  and  vigorous 

5 


>S&OTCl! -IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 


autograph.  Thirteen  only,  or  four  per  cent  of  the  whole,  made  their 
"  mark  "  upon  the  parchment.  It  may  well  be  questioned,  whether 
in  any  other  part  of  the  United  Kingdom  at  that  time,  one  hundred 
and  seventy-two  years  ago,  in  England  or  Wales,  or  Scotland  or 
Ireland,  so  large  a  proportion  as  ninety-six  per  cent  of  promiscuous 
householders  in  the  common  walks  of  life  could  have  written  their 
own  names.  And  it  was  proven  in  the  sequel,  that  those  who  could 
write,  as  well  as  those  who  could  not,  were  also  able  upon  occasion 
to  make  their  "  mark." 

I  have  lately  scrutinized  with  critical  care  this  ancient  parchment 
stamped  by  the  hands  of  our  ancestors,  now  in  the  custody  of  the 
Historical  Society  of  New  Hampshire,  and  was  led  into  a  line  of 
reflections  which  I  will  not  now  repeat,  as  to  its  own  vicissitudes  in 
the  seven  quarter-centuries  of  its  existence,  and  as  to  the  personal 
vicissitudes  and  motives,  and  heart-swellings  and  hazards,  and  cold 
and  hunger  and  nakedness,  as  well  as  the  hard-earned  success  and 
the  sense  of  triumph,  and  the  immortal  vestigia  of  the  men  who 
lovingly  rolled  and  unrolled  this  costly  parchment  on  the  banks  of 
the  Foyle  and  the  Bann  Water !  Tattered  are  its  edges  now, 
shrunken  by  time  and  exposure  its  original  dimensions,  illegible 
already  some  of  the  names  even  under  the  fortifying  power  of 
modern  lenses,  but  precious  in  the  eyes  of  New  England,  nay, 
precious  in  the  eyes  of  Scotch-Irishmen  everywhere,  is  this  vener 
able  muniment  of  intelligence  and  of  courageous  purpose  looking 
down  upon  us  from  the  time  of  the  first  English  George. 

It  is  enough  for  our  present  purpose  to  know  that  Governor 
Shute  gave  such  general  encouragement  and  promise  of  welcome 
through  Mr.  Boyd  to  his  constituents  that  the  latter  were  content 
with  the  return-word  received  from  their  messenger,  and  set  about 
with  alacrity  the  preparations  for  their  embarkation.  Nothing 
definite  was  settled  between  the  governor  and  the  minister,  not 
even  the  locality  of  a  future  residence  for  the  newcomers ;  but  it  is 
clear  in  general,  that  the  governor's  eye  was  upon  the  district  of 
Maine,  then  and  for  a  century  afterward,  a  part  of  Massachusetts. 
Five  years  before  Boyd's  visit  to  Boston,  had  been  concluded  the 
European  treaty  of  Utrecht,  and,  as  between  England  and  France,  it 
had  therein  been  agreed  that  all  of  Nova  Scotia  or  Acadia,  "accord 
ing  to  its  ancient  boundaries,"  should  remain  to  England.  But  what 
were  the  ancient  boundaries  of  Acadia  ?  Did  it  include  all  that  is 
now  New  Brunswick  ?  Or  had  France  still  a  large  territory  on  the 
Atlantic  between  Acadia  and  Maine  ?  This  was  a  vital  question, 
wholly  unsolved  by  the  treaty.  The  motive  of  Massachusetts  in 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW    ENGLAND.  7 

welcoming  the  Scotch-Irish  into  her  jurisdiction  was  to  plant  them 
on  the  frontiers  of  Maine  as  a  living  bulwark  against  the  restless  and 
enterprising  French  of  the  north,  and  their  still  more  restless  savage 
allies ;  the  motive  of  the  Ulstermen  in  coming  to  America  was  to 
establish  homes  of  their  own  in  fee  simple,  taxable  only  to  support 
their  own  form  of  worship  and  their  strictly  local  needs — to  escape, 
in  short,  the  land  lease  and  the  church  tithe;  the  bottom  aims,  accord 
ingly,  of  both  parties  to  the  negotiation  ran  parallel  with  each  other, 
and  there  was  in  consequence  a  swift  agreement  in  the  present,  and 
in  the  long  sequel  a  large  realization  of  the  purposes  of  both. 

August  4,  1718,  five  small  ships  came  to  anchor  near  the  little 
wharf  at  the  foot  of  State  Street  in  Boston,  then  a  town  of  perhaps 
twelve  thousand  people.  On  board  these  ships  were  about  one 
hundred  and  twenty  families  of  Scotch-Irish.  They  reckoned  them 
selves  in  families.  It  is  certain  that  the  number  of  persons  in  the 
average  family  so  reckoned  was,  according  to  our  modern  notions, 
very  large.  There  may  have  been,  there  probably  was,  at  least 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  passengers  on  board.  Cluttered  in  those 
separate  ships,  not  knowing  exactly  whither  to  turn,  having  as  a 
whole  no  recognized  leader  on  board,  110  Castle  Garden  to  afford 
a  preliminary  shelter,  no  organized  Commissioners  of  Immigration 
to  lend  them  a  hand,  the  most  of  them  extremely  poor  —  the  imag 
ination  would  fain,  but  may  not  picture  the  confusions  and  per 
plexities,  the  stout  hearts  of  some  and  the  heart-aches  of  others,  the 
reckless  joy  of  children,  and  the  tottering  steps  of  old  men  and 
women.  One  patriarch,  John  Young  —  I  know  his  posterity  well  — 
was  ninety-five  years  old.  And  there  were  babies  in  arms,  a  plenty 
of  them ! 

Besides  Mr.  Boyd,  who  had  stayed  the  summer  in  Boston,  where 
he  found  already  settled  a  few  scattered  and  peeled  of  his  own  race 
and  faith,  there  were  three  Presbyterian  ministers  on  board,  —  Mr. 
McGregor,  of  blessed  memory,  Mr.  Cornwall,  and  Mr.  Holmes. 
Those  best  off  of  all  the  passengers  —  the  McKeens,  the  Cargills, 
the  Nesmiths,  the  Cochrans,  the  Dinsmores,  the  Mooars,  and  some 
other  families  —  were  natives  of  Scotland,  whose  heads  had  passed 
over  into  Ulster  during  the  short  reign  of  James  II.  These  were 
Covenanters.  They  had  lived  together  in  the  valley  of  the  Bann 
Water  for  about  thirty  years,  in  or  near  the  towns  of  Coleraine  and 
Ballymoney  and  Kilrea.  Their  pastor  was  James  McGregor.  They 
wished  to  settle  together  in  the  new  land  of  promise.  They  or  their 
fathers  and  neighbors  had  felt  the  edge  of  the  sword  of  Graham  of 
Claverhouse  in  Argyleshire ;  they  wished  to  enjoy  together  in  peace 


8  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

in  some  sequestered  spot  the  sweet  ministrations  of  the  Gospel 
according  to  their  own  sense  of  its  rule  and  order,  and,  being  better 
able  than  the  rest  to  wait  and  choose  out  for  themselves,  we  shall 
follow  their  fortunes  a  little  farther  on. 

Others  of  the  company  were  the  descendants  of  those  who  par 
ticipated  in  the  original  "  Colonization  of  Ulster,"  which  dates  from 
1610 ;  and  of  those  who,  three  years  later,  formed  the  first  Presbytery 
in  Ireland,  the  "Presbytery  of  Antrim."  Others  still  were  the 
progeny  of  those  Scotchmen  and  Englishmen,  whom  Cromwell  trans 
planted  at  the  middle  of  the  century  to  take  the  places  of  those 
wasted  by  his  own  pitiless  sword  —  "  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of 
Gideon !  "  And  a  few  families  of  native  Irish  also  mingled  in  the 
throngs  around  the  wharf,  doubtless  drawn  by  sympathy  and  attach 
ment  to  take  the  risk  of  the  New  with  their  neighbors  whom  they 
had  found  trustworthy  and  hospitable  in  the  Old.  I  only  know  for 
certain  that  the  numerous  Young  family,  consisting  of  four  genera 
tions,  and  the  wife  of  Joshua  Gray,  of  whom  we  shall  hear  more 
pretty  soon,  were  Celtic  Irish. 

If  now  we  except  some  individuals  and  families  of  this  great 
company,  who  found  pretty  soon  a  transient  or  permanent  home  in 
Boston  in  connection  with  their  countrymen  already  settled  there 
in  an  isolated  way,  and  who  a  few  years  afterward  formed  a  Presby 
terian  Church  in  Long  Lane  (later  Federal  Street),  under  Rev.  John 
Moorehead  of  saintly  but  eccentric  memory,  which  church  turned 
Congregational  in  1786,  and  afterward,  under  the  famous  Dr. 
Channing,  became  the  bridge  to  Unitarianism ;  and  if  we  except 
also,  perhaps,  as  many  families  who  went  up  that  autumn  to  An- 
dover,  then  a  new  town  whose  development  they  influenced  both 
socially  and  theologically,  and  a  considerable  number  more  who  went 
up  temporarily  to  await  events,  to  the  towns  along  the  Merrimac,  as 
Dracut  and  Haverhill,  all  the  rest  of  the  migration  became  located 
in  the  course  of  six  months  in  three  main  centers,  to  which  we  must 
now  attend  in  order,  and  from  which  these  peculiar  people  diffused 
themselves  little  by  little  into  every  corner  of  New  England. 

1.  WORCESTER.  Nowadays  we  in  Massachusetts  call  Worcester 
"  the  heart  of  the  Commonwealth."  It  is  a  shallow  bowl  of  beauti 
ful  country.  The  fall  of  1718  marked  the  fifth  year  of  its  permanent 
settlement.  There  were  about  fifty  log-houses  and  two  hundred 
souls  within  the  circle.  These  were  all  English  and  Puritans,  and 
from  the  towns  immediately  to  the  eastward.  But  the  Indians 
were  hostile.  Two  previous  settlements  on  the  spot  had  been 
abandoned  from  this  cause,  —  the  first  in  King  Philip's  War  in  the 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  9 

year  1675,  the  second  in  Queen  Anne's  "War  in  1709.  Now  the  colony 
was  determined  to  hold  the  ground.  At  least  five  garrison-houses, 
one  a  regular  block  fort,  stood  within  the  bowl.  Accordingly,  Gov 
ernor  Shute  looked  favorably  upon  the  proposition,  that  a  part  of 
the  Scotch-Irish,  now  in  one  sense  on  his  hands,  should  go  direct  to 
Worcester,  to  find  a  much-needed  home  for  themselves,  to  reinforce 
the  fifty  families  already  on  the  ground,  and  to  take  their  chances 
in  helping  to  defend  the  menaced  western  frontier,  fifty  miles  from 
Boston. 

We  do  not  know  exactly  how  many  went  to  Worcester.  We 
may  fairly  infer  that  at  least  fifty  families  —  large  families  —  went 
straight  from  Boston  to  Worcester  that  autumn,  and  that  the  popu 
lation  of  the  place  was  thus  more  than  doubled  at  one  stroke.  I 
entertain  the  opinion,  gathered  from  scattered  and  uncertain  data, 
that  it  was  the  poorer,  the  more  illiterate,  the  more  helpless,  part 
of  the  five  ship-loads  who  were  conducted  to  Worcester.  I  have 
hanging  in  my  study,  handsomely  framed,  the  original  deed  by 
which  my  immediate  maternal  ancestor,  Matthew  Gray,  conveyed  to 
his  son,  of  the  same  name,  in  1735,  his  farm  in  Worcester  of  fifty- 
five  acres,  still  called  there  the  "  Gray  Farm,"  to  which  deed  are 
appended  not  the  autographs  but  the  "  marks "  of  Matthew  and 
Jean,  his  wife.  Neither  Matthew  nor  Jean  could  write.  The  deed 
is  witnessed,  however,  by  "  William  Gray,  Jr.,"  who  writes  a  fair 
hand;  but  "Ealanor  Gray,"  who  witnesses  with  him,  makes  her 
"  mark."  Three  marks  to  one  manual  is  a  bad  proportion,  but  you 
will  allow  me  to  premise  that  the  Grays,  though  illiterate,  were 
long-headed. 

There  is  much  evidence  that  the  poor  Scotch-Irish  were  welcomed 
in  Worcester  at  first.  They  were  needed  there,  both  for  civil  and 
military  reasons.  Jonas  Rice,  the  first  permanent  settler  of  Wor 
cester,  who  had  been  a  planter  during  the  second  settlement  broken 
up  by  the  Indians,  returned  to  his  farm  to  stay,  October  21,  1713, 
and  remained  with  his  family  alone  in  the  forest  till  the  spring  of 
1715.  Adonijah,  his  son,  was  the  first  child  born  in  Worcester, 
November  7,  1714.  The  cool  courage,  good  sense,  and  strict  integ 
rity  of  Jonas  Rice  made  him  the  first  great  leader  in  the  town 
where  great  leaders  have  never  been  wanting  since.  lie  was  just 
the  man  to  appreciate  the  stout  hearts  of  his  new-come,  not  yet 
well-understood,  neighbors.  No  town  organization  had  as  yet  been 
made  when,  in  1722,  Lovell's  Indian  War  broke  out,  and  two  Scotch- 
Irishmen,  John  Gray  and  Eobert  Crawford,  were  posted  alone  as 
scouts  on  Leicester  Hill  to  the  westward,  doubtless  at  Rice's  in- 


10  SCOTCH-IRISH    IN   NEW    ENGLAND. 

stance.  In  September  of  the  same  year  a  township  organization 
was  first  effected,  and  John  Gray,  with  Jonas  Rice,  were  two  of  the 
first  selectmen;  William  Gray  was  chosen  one  of  the  two  fence- 
viewers,  and  Eobert  Peebles  one  of  the  two  hog-reeves.  At  the  first 
annual  town  meeting,  the  next  year,  new  names  of  the  strangers 
appear  on  the  list  of  town  officers ;  for  example,  James  Hamil 
ton  as  surveyor,  and  Andrew  Farren  as  fence-viewer,  though  John 
Gray  dropped  this  year  from  selectman  to  sealer  of  leather ;  but  at 
the  second  annual  March  meeting,  1724,  John  Gray  goes  back  to 
his  earlier  post  as  selectman ;  James  McClellan,  great-great-great 
grandfather  to  the  late  general-in-chief,  becomes  a  constable ;  Robert 
Lethridge,  a  surveyor  of  highways ;  William  Gray  and  Eobert  Pee 
bles,  fence-viewers ;  John  Battay,  tithingman ;  and  Matthew  Gray, 
my  own  great-great-grandfather,  both  sealer  of  leather  and  hog-reeve. 

The  most  interesting  of  the  purely  Irish  families,  who  came  with 
the  Scotch  to  Worcester,  with  whom  they  had  contracted  relation 
ship  during  their  long  residence  in  Ulster,  or  become  attached  by 
community  of  sentiment  and  suffering,  was  the  Young  family,  four 
generations  together.  They  brought  the  potato  to  Worcester,  and 
it  was  first  planted  there  in  several  fields  in  the  spring  of  1719. 
The  tradition  is  still  lively  in  Scotch-Irish  families  (I  listened  to  it 
eagerly  in  my  boyhood)  that  some  of  their  English  neighbors,  after 
enjoying  the  hospitality  of  one  of  the  Irish  families,  were  presented 
each,  on  their  departure,  with  a  few  tubers  for  planting,  and  the 
recipients,  unwilling  to  give  offense  by  refusing,  accepted  the  gift ; 
but  suspecting  the  poisonous  quality,  carried  them  only  to  the  next 
swamp  and  chucked  them  into  the  water.  The  same  spring  a  few 
potatoes  were  given  for  seed  to  a  Mr.  Walker,  of  Andover,  Mass., 
by  an  Irish  family  who  had  wintered  with  him,  previous  to  their 
departure  for  Londonderry  to  the  northward.  The  potatoes  were 
accordingly  planted,  came  up  and  flourished  well,  blossomed  and 
produced  balls,  which  the  family  supposed  were  the  fruit  to  be  eaten. 
They  cooked  the  balls  in  various  ways,  but  could  not  make  them 
palatable,  and  pronounced  them  unfit  for  food.  The  next  spring, 
while  plowing  the  garden,  the  plow  passed  through  where  the 
potatoes  had  grown,  and  turned  out  some  of  great  size,  by  which 
means  they  discovered  their  mistake.  This  is  the  reason  why  this 
now  indispensable  esculent  is  still  called  in  New  England  certainly, 
and  perhaps  elsewhere,  the  "  Irish  potato." 

John  Young  was  perhaps  the  oldest  immigrant  who  ever  came  to 
this  country  to  live  and  die.  If  the  inscription  on  his  tombstone  is 
to  be  trusted,  which  the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  of  Worcester, 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  11 

copied  and  published  many  years  ago,  lie  was  ninety-five  years  old 
when  he  landed  at  Boston.  He  lived  in  Worcester  twelve  years, 
died  in  1730,  was  buried  in  the  old  yard  on  the  common.  His  son, 
David  Young,  an  old  man  when  he  came,  died  at  ninety-four  years, 
and  was  buried  in  the  same  place.  His  son,  William  Young,  a 
stone-cutter  by  trade,  erected  over  their  graves  a  common  double 
headstone,  with  the  following  inscriptions  in  parallel  columns,  united 
at  the  bottom  by  the  rude  yet  precious  rhyming  lines  :  — 

' '  Here  lies  interred  the  remains  of  Here    lies  interred   the  remains  of 

John  Young,  who  was  born  in  David  Young,  who  was  born  in 

the  isle  of  Bert,  near  London-  the  parish  of  Tahbeyn,  county  of 

derry,  in   the   Kingdom   of  Ireland.  Donegal,   and  Kingdom  of  Ireland. 

He  departed  this  life,  June  He  departed  this  life,  December 

30,  1730,  aged  107  years.  26,  aged  94  years. 

The  aged  son,  and  the  more  aged  father 

Beneath  (these)  stones  their  mould' ring  bones 

Here  rest  together." 

Moses  Young,  probably  the  son  of  this  epitaphist,  William  Young, 
was  a  lad  of  some  six  years  at  the  time  of  the  emigration,  and 
became  the  ancestor  of  numerous  families  of  that  name  in  Western 
Massachusetts,  and  particularly  in  Williamstown,  the  town  of  my 
residence,  where  there  are  no  less  than  five  Young  families  at 
present,  living  in  one  neighborhood,  the  same  they  have  occupied  as 
farmers  for  a  century  and  a  quarter.  These  families  and  individuals 
have  never  exhibited  the  main  traits  of  their  Scotch-Irish  com 
panions  and  their  descendants.  They  have  been  less  "  canny  "  and 
enterprising.  Race  blood  tells  from  generation  to  generation.  They 
have  been,  perhaps,  more  inclined  to  intoxicants  than  the  others ; 
although,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  the  whole  tribe  in  New  England, 
as  a  rule,  and  in  the  earlier  times,  have  drunk  more  than  their  fair 
share  of  the  liquor.  Only  now  and  then  one  of  the  Youngs  has  tried 
professional  and  official  life.  John  Young,  born  in  Worcester,  June 
2,  1739,  studied  medicine  with  the  first  and  famous  Dr.  Green,  of 
Worcester.  He  practiced  a  little  while  in  Pelham,  and  then  moved 
to  Peterborough,  N.H.,  about  1764.  Both  of  these  were  Scotch- 
Irish  towns,  and  Dr.  Young's  migrations  illustrate  the  usage,  well- 
nigh  universal  in  the  last  century,  of  families  and  individuals 
moving  from  town  to  town  within  the  Presbyterian  circuit.  Young 
was  always  very  poor,  and  became  very  intemperate.  The  common 
custom  of  "treating"  the  doctor  and  minister  at  each  professional, 
and  even  friendly  call,  wrought  mischief  to  multitudes  of  both 
orders ;  and  the  later  and  the  last  necessities  of  poor  John  Young, 


12  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

who  died  February  27,  1807,  were  considerately  ministered  unto  by 
the  town  of  Peterborough. 

When  "Lovell's  War"  was  over,  and  before  the  "Old  French 
War"  began,  and  when  the  two  sets  of  population  in  Worcester 
settled  down  to  a  better  neighborhood  acquaintance,  the  inevitable 
antipathies  waked  up  as  between  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen,  as 
between  Presbyterians  and  Puritans.  Certain  traits  and  habits  of 
our  folks,  to  be  specified  later  as  common  to  them  in  all  New  England, 
intensified  the  feeling  of  repugnance  felt  toward  them  in  Worcester. 
They  were  commonly  called  "Irish."  Even  a  formal  act  of  the 
General  Court  of  Massachusetts  denominated  them  "'poor  Irish 
people " ;  and  a  little  later  the  General  Court  of  New  Hampshire 
styled  the  Londonderry  section  of  them  "  a  company  of  Irish  at 
Nutfield."  This  designation  they  all  naturally  enough  resented. 
"We  are  surprised,"  writes  Rev.  James  McGregor,  the  pastor  of 
Londonderry,  in  a  letter  to  Governor  Shute,  bearing  date  in  1720, 
"to  hear  ourselves  termed  Irish  people,  when  we  so  frequently 
ventured  our  all  for  the  British  crown  and  liberties  against  the 
Irish  papists,  and  gave  all  tests  of  our  loyalty  which  the  govern 
ment  of  Ireland  required,  and  are  always  ready  to  do  the  same  when 
required." 

In  Worcester  there  were  at  least  two,  Abraham  Blair  and  Wil 
liam  Caldwell,  and  in  Londonderry  several  more,  including  Rev. 
Matthew  Clark,  of  the  survivors  of  the  heroic -defense  of  the  Ulster 
Londonderry  in  1689;  and  these  men  and  their  heirs  were  made 
free  of  taxation  throughout  the  British  provinces  by  Act  of  Parlia 
ment,  and  occupied  what  were  called  "  exempt  farms  "  in  New  Eng 
land  until  the  American  Revolution,  so  immensely  important  to  the 
establishment  of  their  throne  did  William  and  Mary  hold  the  ser 
vices  of  the  Protestant  settlers  and  defenders  of  Ulster  against  the 
last  and  the  worst  of  the  Stuarts.  Now,  for  these  very  men  and 
their  companions  in  exile  to  be  stigmatized  as  "  Irish,"  in  the  sense 
in  which  that  term  was  then  held  in  reproach,  was  a  bitter  pill  to 
our  fathers  ;  and  this,  and  other  prejudices  more  or  less  well-founded, 
only  yielded,  in  the  course  of  time,  to  the  influence  of  their  simple 
virtues  and  sterling  worth. 

The  tenure  by  which  these  people  held  their  lands  in  Worcester 
seems  at  first  to  have  been  the  same  as  that  of  their  English  neigh 
bors,  who  came  earlier;  namely,  by  direct  grant  of  the  General 
Court  of  Massachusetts :  at  any  rate,  there  is  a  very  early  record 
that  lots  were  so  granted  to  John  Gray  and  Andrew  McFarland, 
two  of  their  leaders ;  and  the  lots  so  granted  earlier  to  members  of 


SCOTCH-IKISH    IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  13 

the  Committee  of  Settlement,  and  to  others  not  actual  settlers,  were 
soon  in  the  market  at  a  very  cheap  price,  and  it  is  known  that  some 
of  the  families  bought  these  lots  at  second  hand,  because  the  deeds 
are  on  record,  and  I  have  seen  them ;  it  was  not,  accordingly,  at  this 
point,  of  lands  or  anything  connected  with  them,  that  the  jealousy 
and  bitterness  between  the  two  strains  of  blood  began,  but  rather 
at  the  point  of  differences  of  language  and  personal  habits,  and 
especially  of  church  beliefs  and  ceremonial.  The  English  had  put 
up  a  rude  log  meeting-house  the  year  before  the  Scotch-Irish  came, 
and  the  year  after  a  more  commodious  structure  was  erected  on  the 
site  of  the  "Old  South  Church"  (but  quite  recently  removed) ;  the 
Ulster  Presbyterians,  from  the  very  first,  liked  to  have  worship  by 
themselves,  and  in  their  own  way,  whenever  and  wherever  they 
could ;  it  is  known  that  they  held  service,  sometimes  in  summer,  in 
the  open  air,  and  for  a  considerable  period,  by  vote  of  the  town, 
they  occupied  for  preaching  purposes  one  of  the  old  garrison  houses, 
commonly  called  the  "  Old  Fort."  Here  having  formed  a  religious 
society,  they  enjoyed  for  a  time  the  ministrations  of  Eev.  Edward 
Fitzgerald  and  Eev.  William  Johnston ;  still,  they  did  not  aban 
don  the  Puritan  Church  on  the  Common,  and  were  taxed,  of  course, 
for  its  support.  This  taxation  made  friction,  for  they  were  poor 
and  could  not  support  their  own  minister  besides  contributing  to 
the  support  of  the  other ;  arid  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  being  unable  to  procure 
proper  maintenance,  removed  from  the  town.  The  numbers  of  Pres 
byterian  communicants  were  nearly  equal  to  those  of  the  Congrega 
tional  Church,  and  the  latter  had  proposed  a  union  with  the  former  ; 
and  Mr.  Fitzgerald  had  once  been  invited  to  occupy  the  pulpit, 
vacated  by  the  dismissal  of  Eev.  Mr.  Gardner  in  1722,  for  a  single 
Sabbath  when  no  candidate  could  be  procured,  but  the  request  was 
not  repeated,  and  no  inducement  was  held  out  to  him  to  remain. 

In  1725  the  English  settled  a  new  minister  in  the  person  of  Eev. 
Isaac  Burr,  and  the  tacit  understanding  if  not  the  express  agreement 
was  that  if  the  Presbyterians  would  aid  morally  and  pecuniarily  in 
his  support,  they  should  be  permitted  to  place  in  the  pulpit  occasion 
ally  teachers  of  their  own  denomination  j  and  so  the  Scotch  people 
united  with  the  other  inhabitants.  After  some  time,  finding  that 
their  expectations  were  not  being  realized  in  this  regard,  and  were 
not  likely  to  be,  the  Scotch  withdrew  from  the  Church  on  the 
Common,  and  installed  the  Eev.  William  Johnston  to  be  their  min 
ister.  Feelings  were  deepening,  difficulties  in  the  way  of  union 
were  multiplying,  and  the  Scotch  had  no  suitable  place  of  worship 
of  their  own.  When,  in  1733,  the  Church  on  the  Common  was 


14  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

repaired  and  somewhat  adorned,  and  a  committee  of  seven  (all  Eng 
lish)  being  appointed  "to  seat  ye  meeting-house  pursuant  to  instruc 
tions/'  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  olive-branch  was  held  out  to  the 
party  of  the  second  part  by  assigning  them  in  general  very  good 
seats,  according  to  the  standard  of  the  time ;  for  example  :  "  In  ye 
fore  section  of  ye  body"  (with  five  English  families),  John  Gray; 
"In  ye  second  section  of  ye  body"  (with  three  English),  William 
Gray,  James  Hamilton,  Andrew  McFarland,  John  Clark,  Robert 
Peebles;  "In  ye  third  section  of  ye  body"  (all  Scotch),  Matthew 
Gray,  Alexander  McKonkey,  "William  Caldwell,  John  Duncan,  William 
Gray,  Jr.,  Matthew  Gray,  Jr.,  Andrew  McFarland,  Jr.,  John  Gray, 
Jr. ;  "In  ye  fourth  section  of  ye  body"  (with  four  English),  James 
Thornington,  John  Battey,  Oliver  Wallis,  Robert  Blair ;  "  In  ye  fifth 
section  of  ye  body"  (all  Scotch),  James  Forbush,  John  Alexander, 
William  Mahan,  John  Stimson,  Duncan  Graham,  John  McFarland, 
Joseph  Clark  ;  "  In  ye  sixth  section  of  ye  body  "  (with  three  English 
families),  John  Patrick,  James  Glasford,  John  Sterling,  Hugh  Kelso; 
"  In  ye  fore  section  of  ye  foremost  gallery  "  (no  Scotch)  ;  "  In  ye 
second  section  of  ye  foremost  gallery"  (with  five  English),  Samuel 
Gray,  Thomas  Hamilton,  Matthew  Clark,  William  Temple ;  "  In  ye 
fore  section  of  ye  long  gallery  "  (with  fourteen  English),  William 
McClellan,  James  McClellan,  John  Cishiel,  Robert  Barbour ;  "  In  ye 
second  section  in  ye  long  gallery"  (with  three  English),  Patrick 
Peebles,  John  McKonkey,  Robert  Marble,  John  Peebles. 

Three  years  after  this  apparently  ostentatious  patronage  of  the 
Presbyterians,  the  latter,  having  been  compelled  to  contribute  for 
eleven  years  to  the  support  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Burr  without  any  pulpit 
or  other  recognition  of  their  peculiar  views,  made  a  formal  appeal 
to  the  justice  of  their  fellow-townsmen  in  town  meeting  for  relief 
from  a  tax  inconsistent  with  their  religious  privileges.  It  was  of  no 
avail.  The  petition  is  not  extant,  since  little  care  was  taken  to 
preserve  the  memorials  of  this  unoffending  but  persecuted  people, 
whose  history  discloses  the  injustice  and  intolerance  of  our  English 
ancestors ;  but  the  answer  of  the  town  of  Worcester  to  their  applica 
tion  is  on  record,  and  it  is  a  curious  specimen  of  an  attempt  to  make 
the  worse  appear  the  better  reason.  One  can  hardly  say  whether 
there  be  in  it  more  of  Yankee  subtlety  or  religious  illiberality.  It 
begins  in  this  way :  "  In  answer  to  the  petition  of  John  Clark  and 
others,  praying  to  be  released  from  paying  toward  the  support  of 
the  Rev.  Isaac  Burr,  pastor  of  the  church  in  this  town,  or  any  other 
except  Mr.  Johnston,  the  town,  upon  mature  consideration,  think 
that  the  request  is  unreasonable,  and  that  they  ought  not  to  comply 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  15 

with  it,  upon  many  considerations."  Thereupon  follow  four  enu 
merated  and  elaborate  alleged  reasons  for  refusal,  no  one  of  them, 
nor  all  of  them  together,  expressing  fully  the  real  reasons.  The 
first  is  a  mere  quibble ;  the  second  asserts  that,  inasmuch  as  both 
churches  follow  substantially  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith, 
"  they  may  enjoy  the  same  worship,  ordinances,  and  Christian  privi 
leges,  and  means  of  their  spiritual  edification,  with  us,  as  in  the 
way  which  they  call  Presbyterian,  and  their  consciences  not  be 
imposed  on  in  anything.'7  As  is  usual  in  this  kind  of  document, 
the  third  enumerated  consideration  falls  into  an  accusing  of  the 
brethren,  "  but  we  have  rather  reason  to  suppose  that  their  separation 
from  us  is  from  some  irregular  views  and  motives,  which  it  would 
be  unworthy  of  us  to  countenance  " ;  and  the  fourth  consideration  I 
will  quote  in  full,  for  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  its  spirit:  "We 
look  upon  the  petitioners  and  others  breaking  off  from  us  as  they 
have  done,  as  being  full  of  irregularity  and  disorder,  not  to  mention 
that  the  ordination  of  their  minister  was  disorderly,  even  with 
respect  to  the  principles  which  they  themselves  pretend  to  act  by, 
as  well  as  with  respect  to  us,  to  whom  they  stand  related,  and  with 
whom  they  cohabit,  and  enjoy  with  us  in  common  all  proper  social, 
civil,  and  Christian  rights  and  privileges  ;  their  separating  from  us 
being  contrary  to  the  public  establishment  and  laws  of  this  Province ; 
contrary  to  their  own  covenant  with  us,  and  unreasonably  weaken 
ing  to  the  town,  whose  numbers  and  dimensions  (the  north  part 
being  excepted  by  the  vote  from  paying  to  Mr.  Burr)  will  not  admit 
of  the  honorable  support  of  two  ministers  of  the  gospel,  and  tending 
to  cause  and  cherish  divisions  and  parties,  greatly  destructive  to 
our  civil  and  religious  interests,  and  the  peace,  tranquillity,  and 
happiness." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  these  masterful  bits  of  logic, 
from  which  almost  all  of  the  formal  fallacies  of  the  books  might  be 
illustrated,  carried  the  town  by  a  large  majority.  This  was  in  1736. 
It  gave  rise  to  two  distinct  impulses  among  the  Presbyterians :  first, 
to  build  a  meeting-house  of  their  own,  in  which  "  Mr.  Johnston  " 
might  officiate,  which  there  was  no  law  to  prevent;  and  second, 
among  individuals  of  better  fortune  and  more  independence  than 
the  rest,  to  shake  off  the  dust  of  their  feet  for  a  testimony  against 
the  infinitesimal  bigotry  of  Worcester  Puritans,  and  go  elsewhere. 

The  Worcester  Kegistry  of  Deeds  bears  ample  evidence  that 
many  farms  in  the  "north  part"  of  the  town,  where  the  Scotch-Irish 
were  specially  located,  and  where  the  "Old  Fort"  stood  in  which 
they  sometimes  worshiped,  changed  hands  in  1737,  and  in  the  years 


16  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

immediately  following.  John  Gray,  for  example,  and  each  of  three 
sons  of  his,  made  significant  conveyances  of  land  in  Worcester  in 
that  interval ;  and  it  is  quite  noticeable  that  the  name  of  John 
Clark,  the  first  to  sign  the  petition  to  the  town  of  Worcester  for 
exemption  from  church  taxes  in  behalf  of  himself  and  fellow  signers, 
stands  prominent  a  couple  of  years  later  among  the  first  settlers  of 
the  Scotch-Irish  town  of  Colerain,  fifty  miles  to  the  northwest 
of  Worcester,  so  named  from  the  old  Ulster  town  on  the  Bann. 
The  Morrisons,  Pennells,  Herrouns,  Hendersons,  Cochranes,  Hunters, 
Henrys,  Clarks,  McClellans,  McCowens,  Taggarts,  and  McDowells, 
many  of  whom  had  been  previous  settlers  in  Worcester,  wer%  the 
chief  families  in  this  frontier  and  Presbyterian  town,  now  on  the 
border  of  Vermont. 

But  the  most  striking  proof  of  the  discontent  of  the  folks  of  our 
blood  with  their  church-treatment  in  Worcester  was  the  formal 
organization  there  in  1738,  two  years  after  the  contemptuous  rejec 
tion  of  their  petition,  of  a  company  consisting  of  thirty-four  families 
to  purchase  and  settle  a  new  town  on  principles  in  keeping  with 
their  own.  Thus  originated  Pelham,  about  thirty  miles  west  of 
Worcester.  Kobert  Peebles  and  James  Thornington  (afterward 
spelled  Thornton)  were  a  committee  to  contract  with  Colonel  John 
Stoddard  and  others,  who  owned  the  territory.  In  the  contract 
occurs  this  passage  :  "  It  is  agreed  that  families  of  good  connection 
be  settled  on  the  premises,  who  shall  be  such  as  were  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Ireland  or  their  descendants,  being  Protestants, 
and  none  to  be  admitted  but  such  as  bring  good  and  undeniable 
credentials  or  certificates  of  their  being  persons  of  good  conversation 
and  of  the  Presbyterian  persuasion  as  used  in  the  Church  of  Scot 
land,  and  conform  to  the  discipline  thereof." 

The  first  meeting  of  these  proprietors  was  held  in  Worcester  at 
the  house  of  Captain  Daniel  Haywood  in  February,  1739,  and  all 
subsequent  meetings  of  the  proprietors  were  held  in  Worcester,  until 
in  August,  1740,  when  a  meeting  was  held  in  the  new  township  at 
the  house  of  JohnJFerguson.  At  this  first  meeting  in  their  own 
new  town  it  was  "voted  to  build  a  meeting-house,  to  raise  £100 
towards  building  it,  and  choose  a  committee  to  agree  with  a  work 
man  to  raise  the  house  and  provide  for  the  settling  of  a  minister." 
Subsequent  to  this,  £220  were  raised  in  two  installments  for  the 
erection  and  completion  of  the  structure.  In  the  spring  of  1743 
two  meetings  were  held  in  the  new  meeting-house,  and  measures 
were  then  taken  "  to  glaze  the  meeting-house,  to  build  a  pulpit,  and 
underpin  the  house  at  the  charge  of  the  town."  The  first  pastor 


SCOTCH-IRISH  IN  NEW   ENGLAND.  17 

they  called  to  settle  was  their  old  quasi-pastor  at  Worcester,  Eev. 
Mr.  Johnston,  who  had  in  the  meantime  removed  to  Londonderry, 
N.  H.  ;  but  he  naturally  enough  declined  the  call.  But  Robert 
Abercrombie,  a  native  of  Edinburgh,  a  profound  scholar,  and  pos 
sessor  of  a  library  surpassed  by  few  in  its  time,  and  which  has  been 
kept  together  till  the  present  time,  began  to  preach  to  the  people 
in  the  summer  of  1742.  His  ordination  sermon  was  preached  by 
the  famous  Jonathan  Edwards,  and  he  remained  a  steadfast  friend 
and  coadjutor  of  that  persecuted  servant  of  God  throughout  his 
subsequent  troubles  in  the  neighboring  Northampton.  It  is  worth 
noting  that  the  public  school  of  Pelharn  was  kept  in  the  new  meet 
ing-house  for  about  ten  years,  when  it  was  "  voted  to  build  three 
school-houses,  one  at  the  Meeting-house,  one  at  the  West  End  of  the 
town,  and  one  on  the  East  Hill." 

Now,  notwithstanding  these  repeated  drafts  on  the  home  colony 
and  church  at  Worcester,  to  Colerain  and  Pelham  and  elsewhere, 
those  who  remained  there  were  still  determined  to  build  a  meeting 
house  of  their  own.  They  had  been  weakened,  but  not  disheartened. 
They  naturally  chose  a  site  near  to  the  "  Old  Fort,"  which  had  been 
to  them  more  or  less  a  worshiping-place,  on  the  "  Boston .road,"  not 
far  from  the  center  of  thei;-  scattered  homesteads.  I  have  often 
been  in  the  neighborhood  of  this  place,  and  am  confident  I  can  point 
out  the  spot  within  a  very  few  rods.  In  their  extreme  poverty 
they  raised  the  needful  moneys,  the  timber  was  brought  to  the  site, 
framed  and  raised,  and  the  building  in  the  earlier  progress  of  con 
struction,  when  the  other  inhabitants  of  Worcester,  many  of  them 
persons  of  consideration  and  respectability  and  professed  piety, 
gathered  tumultuously  in  the  night-time,  leveled  the  structure  with 
the  ground,  sawed  the  timbers,  and  burnt  or  carried  off  the  pieces 
and  other  materials.  This  was  in  1740.  The  defenseless,  but  in 
dignant  strangers  were  compelled  to  submit  to  this  infamous  wrong. 
The  English  Puritans  and  their  irresponsible  hangers-on  chose, 
indeed,  the  night-time  for  their  mob-violence  and  devilish  meanness, 
but  no  blackness  of  darkness  can  ever  cover  up  a  deed  like  this  ;  no 
sophistries,  no  neighborhood  mis-affinities,  no  town  votes,  no  race 
jealousies,  no  wretched  shibboleth  of  any  name,  can  ever  wipe  out 
that  stain.  The  blood  of  English  Puritans  and  of  Scotch  Presby 
terians  mingles  in  my  veins ;  my  great-grandfather  Perry,  my 
grandfather  of  the  same  name,  my  uncle,  too,  in  the  same  line, 
officiated  as  deacons  for  ninety-four  successive  years  in  the  old 
South  Church  on  the  Common,  which  originated  and  perpetrated 
this  outrage  on  humanity ;  nevertheless,  I  give  my  feeble  word  of 


18  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN    NEW   ENGLAND. 

utter  condemnation  for  this  shameless  act  of  bigotry,  the  details  of 
which  I  learned  as  a  little  boy  at  my  mother's  knee. 

The  motives  to  a  still  further  exodus  from  Worcester  on  the  part 
of  the  Scotch  were  of  course  still  further  intensified  by  this  scanda 
lous  destruction  of  their  property  in  1740,  and  it  is  significant,  that 
the  third  and  fourth  purely  Scotch-Irish  towns  in  Massachusetts, 
namely,  Western  (now  Warren),  in  Worcester  County,  and  Bland- 
ford,  in  Hampden  County,  were  both  incorporated  the  next  year, 
1741.  These'  two  towns,  even  more  than  the  two  earlier  ones,  Pel- 
ham  and  Colerain,  have  continued  and  still  remain  in  the  hands  of 
the  descendants  of  the  Worcester  families.  In  Blandford  the  families 
of  Blair,  Boise,  Knox,  Carnahan,  Watson,  Wilson,  and  Ferguson 
were  prominent ;  and  in  Western  some  of  the  same  names,  especially 
the  Blairs,  with  Reeds  and  Crawfords,  and  many  more.  Notwith 
standing  these  successive  migrations  from  Worcester,  a  very  con 
siderable  number  of  families  remained  there ;  among  them,  the 
McClellans,  the  Caldwells,  the  Blairs,  the  McFarlands,  the  Rankins, 
the  Grays,  the  Crawfords,  the  Youngs,  the  Hamiltons,  the  Dun 
cans,  the  Grahams,  the  Forbushes,  the  Kelsos,  the  Clarks,  the 
Fergusons,  the  McClintocks,  the  McKonkeys,  the  Glasfords,  and 
the  McGregors.  The  later  movement  of  individual  families  from 
Worcester  and  Pelham  and  Colerain  and  Western  and  Blandford 
carried  Scotch-Irish  blood  into  every  town  of  Western  Massachu 
setts,  and  ultimately  into  most  of  the  towns  of  Vermont,  while  the 
reflex  movement  from  and  into  Massachusetts  to  and  from  the  con 
temporary  settlements  in  New  Hampshire  and  Maine,  soon  to  be 
characterized,  served  to  keep  in  touch  and  sympathy,  in  mutual 
acquaintance  and  interchange  of  ministers,  and  more  or  less  of 
intermarriage,  all  these  local  centers  of  our  race  in  New  England. 

The  two  most  distinguished  men  who  have  come  out*  from  this 
Worcester  branch  of  the  great  migration  of  1718,  have  been  Dr. 
Matthew  Thornton,  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  Professor  Asa  Gray,  at  the  time  of  his  death  the  most  accom 
plished  botanist  in  the  world. 

Matthew  Thornton  (or  Thornington,  as  the  name  was  then  spelled) 
was  a  lad  of  four  years  when  the  five  ships  zigzagged  into  Boston 
Harbor.  His  father,  James  Thornton,  instead  of  going  to  Worcester 
directly  that  autumn,  was  one  of  a  company  —  Willis  estimates  them 
at  about  three  hundred  —  who  wintered  on  shipboard  in  Portland 
Harbor.  In  the  spring,  with  few  others,  he  settled  at  Wiscasset,  in 
the  Kennebec  country.  After  a  very  few  years  there,  we  find  both 
father  and  son  in  Worcester,  where  the  boy  received  whatever 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  19 

primary  education  lie  had,  and  after  studying  medicine,  which  was 
rudely  taught  in  those  days,  commenced  practice  in  Londonderry, 
among  those  who  were  from  his  native  land,  and  who  proverbially 
possess  warm  national  remembrances.  Here  he  acquired  a  wide 
reputation  as  a  physician,  and  in  the  course  of  several  years  of 
successful  practice  became  comparatively  rich  for  those  times.  He 
also  sustained  several  public  offices,  taking,  as  Scotch-Irishmen  are 
wont  to  do,  an  active  and  influential  part  in  the  public  affairs  of  his 
locality. 

He  became  surgeon  to  a  regiment  of  New  Hampshire  men  in  the 
famous  expedition  against  Cape  Breton  under  Pepperell  in  1745; 
and  it  is  related  of  his  regiment  of  five  hundred  men  that  only  six 
died  previously  to  the  surrender  of  Louisburg,  although  a  company 
from  Londonderry  commanded  by  Captain  John  Mooar,  were  employed 
for  fourteen  successive  nights,  with  straps  over  their  shoulders,  and 
sinking  to  their  knees  in  mud,  in  drawing  cannon  from  the  landing- 
place  to  the  camp,  through  a  morass.  Scotch-Irishmen  always  hated 
the  French  next  to  the  Devil ! 

At  the  breaking  out  of  the  Revolution,  Thornton  held  the  post 
of  colonel  in  the  New  Hampshire  militia,  and  had  also  been  com 
missioned  a  justice  of  the  peace  by  Benning  Wentworth,  acting  under 
British  authority ;  but  after  Lexington  and  Concord,  on  the  19th  of 
April,  1775,  John  Wentworth,  then  governor,  retired  from  the  gov 
ernment  of  New  Hampshire  and  went  to  England.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  colony  called  a  "  Provincial  Convention,'7  of  which 
Thornton  was  appointed  president.  There  was  no  state  constitution 
as  yet,  and  no  declaration  of  independence,  but  there  was  no  other 
constituted  government  in  the  province  besides  this  provincial  con 
vention,  and  I  am  fond  of  thinking,  and  believe  it  to  be  historically 
correct  to  affirm,  that  this  extemporized  but  indispensable  New 
Hampshire  convention,  presided  over  by  a  Scotch-Irishman,  Ulster- 
born,  was  the  first  independent  sovereignty  upon  this  continent  I 
It  certainly  assumed  the  functions  of  an  independent  government 
in  the  name  of  the  people  of  the  Colony. 

Thereafter  the  public  career  of  Matthew  Thornton,  both  in  state 
and  nation,  is  well  known  to  the  world;  and  a  station  on  the  Railroad 
from  Boston  to  Concord  commemorates  in  its  name,  "Thornton's 
Ferry,"  a  fine  estate  on  the  banks  of  the  Merrimac,  confiscated  by 
New  Hampshire  from  its  then  Tory  owner,  which  later  became  by 
purchase  the  home  and  last  resting-place  of  the  first  of  our  kith  and 
kin  to  gain  a  national  reputation  here  in  the  line  of  statesmanship. 

An  anecdote  of  Judge  Thornton  has  been  preserved  which  may 


20  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW  ENGLAND. 

serve  to  illustrate  the  keen  and  ready  wit  possessed  by  him  in 
common  with  most  of  the  Scotch-Irish  race.  In  his  old  age,  1798, 
he  happened  to  attend  a  session  of  the  New  Hampshire  legislature, 
which  met  in  a  town  adjoining  his  own.  He  was  eighty-four  years 
old.  He  had  served  many  years  before  in  all  three  branches  of  the 
legislature.  Meeting  at  this  time  an  old  Londonderry  neighbor, 
who  was  now  a  member  of  the  House,  the  latter  asked  the  judge  if 
he  did  not  think  the  legislature  had  improved  very  much  since  the 
old  days  when  he  held  a  seat  ?  if  it  did  not  have  more  men  of  natural 
and  acquired  abilities,  and  more  eloquent  speakers  than  formerly, 
"  for  then,"  said  he,  "  you  know  that  there  were  but  five  or  six  who 
could  make  speeches,  but  now  all  we  farmers  can  make  speeches." 
"To  answer  that  question,  I  will  tell  you  a  story  I  remember  to 
have  heard  related  of  an  old  gentleman,  a  farmer,  who  lived  but  a 
short  distance  from  my  father's  residence  in  Ireland.  This  old 
gentleman  was  very  exemplary  in  his  observance  of  religious  duties, 
and  made  it  a  constant  practice  to  read  a  portion  of  Scripture 
morning  and  evening  before  addressing  the  Throne  of  Grace.  It 
happened  one  morning  that  he  was  reading  the  chapter  which  gives 
an  account  of  Samson  catching  three  hundred  foxes,  when  the  old 
lady,  his  wife,  interrupted  him  by  saying,  'John,  I'm  sure  that 
canna'  be  true ;  for  our  Isaac  was  as  good  a  fox-hunter  as  there  ever 
was  in  the  country,  and  he  never  caught  but  about  twenty.'  '  Hooh  ! 
Janet,'  replied  the  old  gentleman,  <ye  mauna'  always  tak'  the 
Scripture  just  as  it  reads;  perhaps  in  the  three  hundred  there  might 
ha'  been  aughteen,  or  may  be  twanty,  that  were  real  foxes  ;  the  rest 
were  all  skunks  and  woodchucks.' '' 

Professor  Asa  Gray,  the  cosmopolitan  botanist,  was  born  in  Paris, 
N.  Y.,  in  1810,  and  died  in  his  seventy-eighth  year,  in  Cambridge, 
the  seat  of  his  labors  and  the  center  of  his  fame.  He  was  a  great- 
great-grandson  of  the  first  Matthew  Gray  of  Worcester,  to  whom  I 
also  stand  in  the  same  genealogical  relation.  Some  ten  years  ago 
I  spent,  by  invitation,  an  evening  at  his  house,  in  order  to  unfold  to 
him  a  little  the  story  of  our  common  ancestors  in  Worcester.  He 
was  very  courteous,  and  apparently  attentive ;  but  I  soon  discovered 
that  the  drift  and  training  of  his  mind  had  led  him  to  care  vastly 
more  about  the  genealogy  and  physiology  of  plants  the  world  over 
than  about  the  genealogy  and  mode  of  life  of  that  Scotch-Irish 
ancestry  from  whom,  nevertheless,  he  derived  directly  all  the  peculiar 
traits  of  his  own  mental  activity.  He  was  canny,  absorbed,  analytic, 
comprehensive,  religiously  consecrated. 

In  1885,  on  attaining  his  seventy-fifth  year,  he  was  the  recipient 


SCOTCH-IKISH  IN  NEW   ENGLAND.  21 

of  a  large  and  beautiful  silver  vase,  the  gift  of  the  botanists  of  the 
United  States  to  their  honored  master,  and  a  flood  of  congratulations 
from  friends  at  home  and  abroad.  The  following  terse  and  appro 
priate  lines  were  sent  by  James  Russell  Lowell : 

"  Kind  Fate,  prolong  the  days  well  spent, 

Whose  indefatigable  hours 
Have  been  as  gaily  innocent 
And  fragrant  as  his  flowers." 

Comparatively  early  in  life  he  became  a  member  of  most  of  the 
learned  societies  of  the  world,  and  at  length  even  the  most  exclusive 
gladly  opened  their  doors  to  him.  The  Royal  Society  of  London 
was  one  of  these,  and  he  was  also  one  of  the  "  immortal  eight " 
foreign  members  of  the  French  Institute.  During  his  last  visit  to 
Europe,  the  last  summer  of  his  life,  he  was  received  with  distin 
guished  honors  everywhere,  among  which  were  the  highest  degrees 
ever  conferred  by  the  great  universities  of  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and 
Edinburgh. 

He  himself  tersely  and  modestly  stated  his  own  fundamental 
beliefs  as  follows:  "I  am,  scientifically  and  in  my  own  fashion,  a 
Darwinian ;  philosophically,  a  convinced  Theist ;  and  religiously,  an. 
accepter  of  the  creed  commonly  called  the  Nicene,  as  the  exponent 
of  the  Christian  faith." 

2.  LONDONDERRY.  The  core  of  the  company  that  settled  Lon 
donderry,  N.  H.,  in  April,  1719,  consisted  of  sixteen  men,  with  their 
families,  namely:  James  McKeen,  John  Barnett,  Archibald  Clen- 
denin,  John  Mitchell,  James  Sterrett,  James  Anderson,  Randall 
Alexander,  James  Gregg,  James  Clark,  James  Nesmith,  Allen  An 
derson,  Robert  Weir,  John  JVlorrison,  Samuel  Allison,  Thomas  Steele, 
John  Stuart.  Thirteen  of  these  men  lived  to  an  average  age  of 
seventy-nine  years ;  six  of  them  attained  to  nearly  ninety,  and  two 
of  them  overpassed  that  limit ;  and  one,  John  Morrison,  lived  to 
see  ninety-seven  years.  All  of  the  Scotch-Irish  of  that  generation, 
wherever  they  located  in  New  England,  unless  their  personal  habits 
were  such  as  shorten  life,  attained  on  the  average  to  a  very  advanced 
age.  The  pioneers  in  this  second  settlement  were  most  of  them 
men  in  middle  life,  robust  and  persevering,  and  adventurous  and 
strong-willed,  fronting  death  with  no  thought  of  surrender.  Most 
of  them  were  the  descendants  of  Scotch  Covenanters  who  had  passed 
over  to  Ulster  later  than  the  mass  of  the  settlers  there ;  and  they 
had  kept  together  in  church  relations,  as  well  as  in  residence,  more 
closely  than  most  of  the  Scotch  settlers.  Their  residence  was  in 


22  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

the  valley  of  the  Bann,  mostly  on  the  Antrim  side  of  the  river,  in  or 
near  the  towns  or  parishes  of  Coleraine,  Ballymoiiey,  Ballymena, 
Ballywatick,  and  Kilrea;  and  when  they  decided  to  emigrate,  they 
still  wished  to  keep  together  in  church  relations ;  and  those  of  them 
who  had  been  under  the  pastoral  charge  of  Eev.  James  McGregor, 
who  came  with  them,  especially  the  McKeen  families  and  their 
numerous  connections,  desired  to  form  a  distinct  settlement  here 
and  become  again  the  charge  of  their  beloved  pastor. 

With  this  end  in  view,  about  twenty  families,  taking  others  with 
them,  amounting  in  all  (as  Willis  estimated)  to  three  hundred 
persons,  sailed  from  Boston  in  the  late  autumn  to  explore  Casco 
Bay  for  a  home,  under  a  promise  from  Governor  Shute  of  a  grant  of 
land  whenever  and  wherever  they  decided  upon  a  location  in  any 
still  unappropriated  quarter  in  New  England.  They  wintered,  hun 
gry  and  cold,  in  Portland  harbor.  In  the  early  spring  they  explored 
to  the  eastward,  but  there  is  no  record  how  far  they  went  or  what 
they  found.  It  is  enough  for  our  present  purpose  that  Maine 
seemed  to  offer  no  genial  home  to  those  sea-worn  and  weather-beaten 
voyagers.  Though  they  left  a  few  of  their  number  in  Portland, 
to  whom  we  shall  recur  later,  and  probably  a  larger  number  on 
the  Kennebec  at  or  near  Wiscasset,  the  bulk  determined  to  seek  a 
milder  climate  and  a  more  favorable  location.  Undoubtedly,  while 
still  hi  Boston  their  attention  had  been  called  to  Southern  New 
Hampshire  as  well  as  to  Maine,  both  at  that  time  under  the  juris 
diction  of  the  governor  of  Massachusetts,  for  they  sailed  directly 
back  to  the  mouth  of  the  Merrimac  and  anchored  at  Haverhill,  on 
that  river,  where  they  heard  of  a  fine  tract  of  land  about  fifteen 
miles  to  the  northward,  then  called  Nutfield,  on  account  of  the 
abundance  of  the  chestnut  and  walnut  and  butternut  trees  which,  in 
connection  with  the  pines,  distinguished  the  growth  of  its  forests. 
A  party,  under  the  lead  of  James  McKeen,  grandfather  of  the  first 
president  of  Bowdoin  College,  and  brother-in-law  of  Pastor  McGre 
gor,  went  up  and  examined  the  tract ;  and  ascertaining  that  it  was 
not  appropriated,  they  decided  at  once  to  take  up  here  the  grant 
obtained  from  the  government  of  Massachusetts  of  a  township 
twelve  miles  square  of  any  of  her  unappropriated  lands. 

Having  selected  the  spot  on  which  to  commence  their  settlement, 
and  having  built  a  few  temporary  huts  on  a  little  brook  which  they 
called  "West-Running  Brook/'  a  tributary  of  Beaver  Brook,  which 
falls  into  the  Merrimac  at  Lcwell,  and  leaving  two  or  three  of  their 
number  in  charge,  they  returned  to  Haverhill  to  bring  on  their 
families,  their  provisions,  their  implements  of  labor,  and  household 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  23 

utensils.  Mr.  McGregor  and  some  others  had  passed  the  winter  at 
Dracut,  on  Beaver  Brook,  just  north  of  Lowell ;  and  two  parties, 
one  from  Dracut  and  the  other  from  Haverhill,  were  soon  converging 
through  the  forests  toward  West-Running  Brook,  when  they  met, 
as  tradition  says,  at  a  place  ever  after  called  "Horse  Hill,"  from 
the  fact  that  both  parties  there  tied  their  horses  while  the  men 
surveyed  the  territory  around  as  the  future  home.  This  day  was 
April  11,  old  style,  1719.  The  next  day,  having  in  the  meantime 
explored  with  the  leaders  more  fully  what  they  had  selected  for  the 
township,  the  good  pastor,  under  a  large  oak  on  the  east  side  of 
Beaver  Pond,  delivered  to  his  people,  now  partially  re-united,  the 
first  sermon  ever  preached  in  that  region  —  Isaiah  32,  2 :  "  And  a 
man  shall  be  as  a  hiding-place  from  the  wind,  and  a  covert  from  the 
tempest ;  as  rivers  of  water  in  a  dry  place ;  as  the  shadow  of  a 
great  rock  in.  a  weary  land."  The  spot  where  this  religious  service 
was  held,  especially  the  tree  around  which  these  hardy  pioneers 
assembled,  was  for  a  long  period  regarded  with  great  reverence  by 
the  people  of  Londonderry.  When  at  last  it  decayed  and  fell,  the 
owner  of  the  field  in  which  it  stood  planted  a  young  apple  tree 
among  its  rotten  roots,  which  now  serves,  and  will  long  serve,  to 
designate  the  venerated  spot. 

These  first  families,  in  order  to  secure  the  advantages  of  near 
neighborhood,  and  be  better  able  to  protect  themselves  against  the 
attacks  of  the  Indians,  with  which  all  the  New  England  colonies 
were  at  that  time  threatened,  planted  their  log-houses  on  each  side 
of  West-Running  Brook,  on  home-lots  but  thirty  rods  wide  and 
extending  back  on  a  north  and  south  line  till  they  inclosed  sixty 
acres  each.  These  lots  constituted  what  has  ever  since  been  called 
the  Double  Range.  For  fifty  years  or  more  this  range  continued 
to  be  a  populous  section  of  the  town.  The  first  season  the  settlers 
cultivated  a  field  alongside  the  brook,  then  and  ever  since  called  the 
"Common  Field";  but  the  best  land  in  the  township  was  not  in 
that  section,  for  it  lay  too  low,  and  as  each  settler  had  allotted  to 
him  another  sixty  acres  elsewhere,  after  a  while  the  lowland  began 
to  be  deserted  of  houses,  and  nothing  is  now  to  be  seen  along  the 
Double  Range  but  meadows,  dotted  here  and  there  by  the  cellar-holes 
of  these  earliest  planters.  No  price  was  paid  for  the  land,  since  it 
was  the  free  gift  of  King  William  to  his  loyal  subjects  of  the  old 
country,  some  of  them  faithful  champions  of  his  throne  in  the  siege 
and  defense  of  Londonderry. 

The  first  dwellings  were,  of  course,  of  logs,  and  covered  with 
bark.  It  is  to  be  noticed,  however,  that  in  these  exiles  for  right- 


24  SCOTCH-IKISH  IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

eousness'  sake,  sound  and  pious  as  they  were,  there  was  as  much 
human  nature  to  the  square  inch  as  in  the  rest  of  mankind.  When 
John  Morrison  was  building  his  house  in  the  Double  Range  his 
wife  came  to  him,  and  in  a  persuasive,  affectionate  manner  said  to 
him,  "  Aweel,  aweel,  dear  Joan,  an'  it  maun  be  a  log-house,  do  make 
it  a  log  heegher  nor  the  lave"  (than  the  rest).  Beaver  Brook, 
however,  tumbles  well  in  its  course  from  the  pond  to  the  Merrimac, 
and  saw-mills  were  soon  built,  and  within  a  year  or  two  good  framed 
houses  were  erected;  the  first  for  Pastor  McGregor,  only  quite 
recently  demolished,  and  the  second  by  John  McMurphy,  Esq., 
who  bore  a  commission  as  justice  of  the  peace,  dated  in  Ireland,  and 
so  antedated  the  commission  signed  by  Governor  Shute,  April  29, 
1720,  to  Justice  James  McKeen,  in  some  sense  the  foremost  man  of 
the  settlement. 

Two  stone  garrison-houses,  strongly  built  and  well  prepared  to 
resist  an  attack  of  the  Indians,  were  put  up  the  first  season;  and 
to  these  the  several  families  retired  at  night  whenever,  for  any 
reason,  special  danger  from  that  source  was  apprehended.  But  it  is 
remarkable  that  neither  in  Lovell's  War,  when  Londonderry  was 
strictly  a  frontier  town,  nor  in  either  of  the  two  subsequent  French 
and  Indian  wars,  did  any  hostile  force  from  the  northward  ever  even 
approach  that  town.  Tradition  has  always  been  busy  in  ascribing 
the  signal  preservation  of  this  colony  from  the  attacks  of  the 
Indians  to  the  influence  of  Pastor  McGregor  over  Governor  Vaud- 
reuil  of  Canada.  It  is  said  that  they  had  known  each  other  in  the 
Old  World  at  college  ;  that  a  correspondence  was  kept  up  between 
them  on  this  side  the  water;  that  at  the  request  of  his  friend 
the  governor  caused  means  to  be  used  for  the  protection  of  the 
settlement ;  that  he  induced  the  Catholic  priests  to  charge  the 
Indians  not  to  injure  any  of  these  people,  as  they  were  different 
from  the  English,  and  that  the  warriors  were  assured  beforehand 
that  no  bounty  would  be  paid  for  such  scalps,  and  no  sins  forgiven 
to  those  who  killed  them.  It  is  certain  that  the  early  inhabitants 
of  Londonderry  believed  in  all  these  assertions ;  and  it  is  some 
confirmation  of  them  that  a  manuscript  sermon  of  McGregor's,  still 
extant,  has  on  the  margin  the  name  and  various  titles  of  the  Mar 
quis  Vaudreuil,  by  which,  of  course,  he  would  be  addressed  upon 
occasion. 

At  any  rate,  the  earliest  pioneers  were  much  indebted  to  the 
volunteer  services  of  an  Indian  of  some  tribe  and  connection.  Taking 
Mr.  McGregor  to  a  high  hill,  he  pointed  to  a  tall  pine  some  nine 
miles  distant,  and  told  him  that  in  that  direction  and  neighborhood 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  25 

there  were  falls  in  the  river,  where  he  would  find  an  abundance  of 
fish.  By  the  help  of  his  compass  the  pastor,  with  a  few  of  the 
settlers,  was  able  to  mark  out  a  course  to  Amoskeag  Falls,  where 
the  city  of  Manchester  now  stands,  and  with  a  scoop-net,  which  they 
had  provided,  readily  secured  an  ample  supply  of  salmon  and  shad, 
with  which  the  Merrimac  then  abounded.  This  was  for  a  long  time 
a  valuable  resource  to  the  inhabitants  of  Londonderry.  The  salted 
fish  constituted  an  important  article  of  their  food,  especially  before 
their  new  fields  became  productive.  But  their  food  at  best  was 
scant  and  poor  for  many  years.  Bean  porridge,  barley  broth,  hasty 
pudding,  samp  and  potatoes,  were  the  chief  reliance. 

In  securing  a  perfectly  valid  title  to  their  lands,  and  the  demo 
cratic  privileges  of  a  town  corporate,  the  people  of  Londonderry 
experienced  no  little  embarrassment.  The  executive  jurisdiction  of 
Governor  Shute  over  the  territory  was  acknowledged  by  everybody, 
and  the  validity  of  his  grant  to  them  of  the  land  in  the  king's 
name ;  but  could  they  also  get  a  prior  title  direct  from  the  original 
Indian  chiefs  claiming  to  own  the  land  ?  Rev.  John  Wheelright  of 
Exeter  had  obtained  by  fair  purchase,  in  1629,  from  the  four  princi 
pal  Sagamores,  all  the  territory  lying  between  the  river  Piscataqua 
and  the  Merrimac.  Colonel  John  Wheelright  of  Wells,  Me.,  had 
inherited  from  his  grandfather  that  portion  of  this  right  now  occu 
pied  by  the  Scotch-Irish;  and  he  gave  to  a  committee  of  these, 
partly  at  the  instance  of  Lieutenant-Governor  Wentworth  of  New 
Hampshire,  a  formal  deed  of  the  land  ten  miles  square,  correspond 
ing  to  the  grant  of  Governor  Shute;  and  in  consideration  of  this 
service  both  Wheelright  and  Wentworth  received  certain  lots  of 
land  in  Londonderry,  which  proved  in  the  sequel  to  be  some  of 
the  best  farms  in  the  town. 

Before  this  was  accomplished,  however,  appeared  the  first  state 
paper  of  the  Scotch-Irish  in  America,  the  original  of  which  is  now 
among  the  collections  of  the  New  Hampshire  Historical  Society, 
which  I  proceed  to  quote  in  full,  because  it  shows  there  were  men 
among  them— probably  in  this  case  James  Gregg  and  Eobert  Wear, 
who  signed  it  —  who  knew  how  to  put  sharp  points  into  clean  words, 
and  especially  because  it  shows  that  they  thoroughly  appreciated 
already  the  town-government  system  of  New  England,  and  wanted 
all  its  advantages  for  themselves  : 

"The  humble  petition  of  the  people  late  from  Ireland,  now 
settled  at  Nutfield,  to  His  Excellency  the  Governour  and  General 
Court  assembled  at  Portsmouth,  Sept.  23,  1719,  —  Humbly  sheweth : 
That  your  petitioners  having  made  application  to  the  General  Court 


26  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

met  at  Boston  in  October  last,  and  having  obtained  a  grant  for  a 
township  in  any  part  of  their  unappropriated  lands,  took  encourage 
ment  thereupon  to  settle  at  Nutfield  about  the  Eleventh  of  April 
last,  which  is  situated  by  estimation  about  fourteen  miles  from 
Haverel  meeting-house  to  the  North-west,  and  about  fifteen  miles 
from  Dracut  meeting-house  on  the  River  Merrimack  north  and 
by  east.  That  your  petitioners  since  their  settlement  have  found 
that  the  said  Nutfield  is  claimed  by  three  or  four  different  parties 
by  virtue  of  Indian  deeds,  yet  none  of  them  offered  any  dis 
turbance  to  your  petitioners  except  one  party  from  Newbury  and 
Salem.  Their  deed  from  one  John,  Indian,  bears  date  March  13, 
Anno  Dom.  1701,  and  imparts  that  they  had  made  a  purchase  of 
said  land  for  five  pounds.  By  virtue  of  this  deed  they  claim  ten 
miles  square  westward  from  Heverel  line  ;  and  one  Caleb  Moody  of 
Newbury,  in  their  name,  discharged  our  people  from  clearing  or  any 
way  improving  the  said  land,  unless  we  agreed  that  20  or  25  families 
at  most  should  dwell  there,  and  that  all  the  rest  of  the  land  should 
be  reserved  for  them.  That  your  petitioners  by  reading  the  grant 
of  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain  to  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 
which  determineth  their  northern  line  three  miles  from  the  River 
Merrimack  from  any  and  every  part  of  the  River,  and  by  advice 
from  such  as  were  more  capable  to  judge  of  this  affair  are  satis 
fied  that  the  said  Nutfield  is  within  his  majesties  province  of  New 
Hampshire,  which  we  are  further  confirmed  in,  because  the  General 
Court  met  at  Boston  in  May  last  upon  our  renewed  application,  did 
not  think  fit  any  way  to  intermeddle  with  the  said  land.  That  your 
petitioners,  therefore,  embrace  this  opportunity  of  addressing  this 
Honorable  Court,  praying  that  their  township  may  consist  of  ten 
miles  square,  or  in  a  figure  equivalent  to  it,  they  being  in  number 
about  seventy  families  and  inhabitants,  and  more  of  their  friends 
arrived  from  Ireland  to  settle  with  them,  and  many  of  the  people 
of  New  England  settling  with  them;  and  that  they  being  so  nu 
merous,  may  be  erected  into  a  township  with  its  usual  privileges, 
and  have  a  power  of  making  town  officers  and  laws.  That,  being  a 
frontier  place,  they  may  the  better  subsist  by  government  amongst 
them,  and  may  be  more  strong  and  full  of  inhabitants.  That  your 
petitioners  being  descended  from,  and  professing  the  faith  and 
principles  of,  the  established  Church  of  North  Britain,  and  loyal 
subjects  of  the  British  Crown  in  the  family  of  his  majesty  King 
George,  and  encouraged  by  the  happy  administration  of  his  majesties 
chief  governour  in  these  provinces  [Gov.  Shute],  and  the  favorable 
inclination  of  the  good  people  of  New  England  to  their  brethren, 


SCOTCH-IKISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  27 

adventuring  to  come  over  and  plant  in  this  vast  wilderness,  humbly 
expect  a  favorable  answer  from  this  Honourable  Court,  and  your 
petitioners  as  in  duty  bound  shall  ever  pray,  etc.  Subscribed  at 
Nutfield  in  the  name  of  our  people,  Sept.  21,  1719." 

Under  the  auspices,  perhaps  it  would  be  proper  to  say  patronage, 
of  Lieutenant-Governor  Wentworth,  Nutfield  was  incorporated  as  a 
town  in  June,  1722,  containing  ten  square  miles  indeed,  but  not 
equilateral,  "duly  bounded,"  panhandled,  gerrymandered,  so  as  to 
reach  up  to  their  fishing  station  on  the  Merrimac  at  Amoskeag  Falls 
—  this  portion  afterward  called  Derryfield,  and  now  Manchester. 
The  following  entry  upon  the  town  record  must  not  only  be  viewed 
as  a  genuine  token  of  gratitude  for  past  favors  received,  but  also  in 
part  as  expressing  a  sense  of  pre-thankfulness  for  "  the  substance  of 
things  hoped .  for  "  :  "  The  people  of  Nutfield  do  acknowledge  with 
gratitude  the  obligation  they  are  under  to  the  Hon.  John  Wentworth, 
Esq.,  Lieutenant-Governor  of  New  Hampshire.  They  remember 
with  pleasure,  that  His  Honor,  on  all  occasions,  showed  a  great  deal 
of  civility  and  real  kindness  to  them,  being  strangers  in  the  country, 
and  cherished  the  small  beginnings  of  their  settlement  and  defended 
them  from  the  encroachment  and  violence  of  such  as  upon  unjust 
grounds  would  have  disturbed  their  settlement,  and  always  gave 
them  a  favorable  ear  and  easy  access  to  government,  and  procured 
justice  for  them,  and  established  order,  and  promoted  peace  and 
good  government  amongst  them;  giving  them  always  the  most 
wholesome  and  seasonable  advice,  both  with  respect  to  the  purity 
and  liberty  of  the  gospel,  and  the  management  of  their  secular  con 
cerns,  and  put  arms  and  ammunition  into  their  hands  to  defend 
them  from  the  fears  and  dangers  of  the  Indians ;  and  contributed 
liberally,  by  his  influence  and  example,  to  the  building  of  a  house 
for  the  worship  of  God ;  so  that,  under  God,  we  own  him  for  the 
patron  and  guardian  of  our  settlement,  and  erect  this  monument 
of  gratitude  to  the  name  and  family  of  Wentworth,  to  be  had  in 
the  greatest  veneration  by  the  present  generation  and  the  latest 
posterity." 

In  the  meantime  and  afterward,  the  people  of  the  town  now 
christened  Londonderry  at  its  incorporation,  though  the  ancestors 
of  most  of  them  came  from  the  parallel  valley  dividing  County 
Antrim  from  County  Londonderry,  —  the  siege  and  defense  of  the 
Ulster  town  in  which  some  of  them  had  taken  a  personal  part  giving 
that  name  the  preference,  —  were  surveying  their  heritage,  building 
their  first  meeting-house,  and  laying  out  upon  the  higher  grounds 
new  ranges  for  farms.  Among  the  first  of  these  was  the  English 


28  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

Eange,  so-called,  to  accommodate  a  few  heads  of  families  from 
Massachusetts  who  had  cast  in  their  lot  with,  and  were  welcomed 
by,  the  Scotch-Irish.  Number  One  on  the  English  Eange  was 
assigned  to  Joseph  Simonds,  who  was  one  of  the  first  twenty  heads 
of  families,  who  was  one  of  the  four  undertakers  to  build  in  1719 
the  first  saw-mill  on  Beaver  Brook,  and  who  (which  is  much  less 
worth  the  mention)  was  one  of  the  great-great-great-grandfathers  of 
my  children.  A  few  weeks  ago  I  had  myself  driven  leisurely  in  a 
buggy  over  all  parts  of  ancient  Londonderry ;  I  crossed  the  original 
farm  of  Joseph  Simonds,  No.  1  in  the  English  Eange,  and  was  told 
by  Mr.  Choate,  proprietor  of  the  same  or  adjoining  estate,  that  "the 
best  lands  in  Londonderry  were  on  the  English  Eange " ;  I  rode, 
also,  over  the  crest  of  Aiken's  Eange,  and  along  the  brook  bearing 
the  same  name,  and  farther  west  toward  the  so-called  High  Eange, 
past  the  second-built  church,  and  then  bearing  east  past  the  site 
of  Dr.  Morrison's  church,  and  near  the  place  of  the  Hill  church 
and  graveyard,  and,  crossing  the  railroad  again,  with  Beaver  Pond 
on  the  left,  climbed  the  hill  past  the  original  meeting-house,  which 
John  Wentworth  helped  to  build,  and  the  original  graveyard  there, 
—  God's  own  sown  field,  —  and  on  the  road  towards  Parson  Mc 
Gregor's  first  framed  house,  touched  the  highest  land  in  old  Lon 
donderry  ;  whence  returning  to  Derry  village,  we  crossed  the  old 
"  West-Eunning  Brook,"  and  passed  also  by  the  "  Common  Field," 
and  on  Beaver  Brook  again,  the  place  of  the  first  saw-mill,  which 
Joseph  Simonds  helped  to  build,  and  where  logs  have  been  rolled 
in  and  boards  tossed  out  from  that  day  to  this. 

It  was  not  all  harmony  in  state  or  church  in  ancient  Londonderry. 
The  town  thrived  and  the  congregation  became  very  large.  "  Many 
men  of  many  minds."  The  Scotch-Irish  were  a  straight-thinking 
and  a  plain-speaking  people.  Parson  McGregor  died  in  1729.  Though 
but  a  youth  at  the  time,  he  took  part  in  the  defense  of  the  Ulster 
Derry,  and  always  claimed  to  have  himself  discharged  the  large  guns 
from  the  tower  of  the  cathedral  which  announced  to  the  starving 
besieged  below  the  approach  of  the  ships  up  the  Foyle  that  brought 
them  the  final  relief.  Soon  after  the  death  of  McGregor,  Eev. 
Matthew  Clark,  then  seventy  years  old,  came  direct  from  Ireland  to 
Londonderry,  and  was  asked  to  supply  the  desk  'and  take  pastoral 
care,  but  not  to  become  formal  pastor.  There  is  extant  an  original 
portrait  of  this  man,  representing  him  with  a  black  patch  around 
the  outer  angle  of  the  right  eye,  the  patch  covering  a  wound  that 
refused  to  heal,  received  in  one  of  the  sallies  of  the  besieged  at 
Londonderry.  He  had  been  an  officer  in  the  Protestant  army  during 


SCOTCH-HUSH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  29 

the  civil  commotions  in  King  William's  time,  and  had  been  partic 
ularly  active  in  the  defense  of  Derry.  It  is  related  of  him  that, 
while  sitting  as  moderator  of  the  presbytery,  the  martial  music  of 
a  training  band  passing  by  recalled  the  smoldering  fires  of  his 
youth,  and  made  him  incapable  for  a  little  time  to  attend  to  his 
duties,  and  his  reply  to  the  repeated  calls  of  the  brethren  was,  "N^ae 
business  while  I  hear  the  toot  o'  the  drum ! "  and  when  he  died  at 
the  age  of  seventy-six,  in  January,  1735,  in  compliance  with  his 
special  request  on  his  death-bed,  his  remains  were  borne  to  the 
grave  by  those  only  who  had  been  his  fellow-soldiers  and  fellow- 
sufferers  in  the  siege  of  Londonderry !  This  is  at  once  the  most 
picturesque  and  the  most  pathetic  scene  in  the  story  of  the  Scotch- 
Irish  in  New  England.  Forty-five  years  after  the  event,  this  modern 
Israel,  this  "  Warrior  of  God,"  in  two  senses,  borne  along  between 
the  mingled  pines  and  nut-trees  of  a  new  God's  acre  in  the  wilder 
ness,  by  those  only  who,  with  him,  had  stood  to  the  outermost  verge 
of  their  lives  for  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints  ! 

Two  years  after  the  death  of  Matthew  Clark,  David  McGregor, 
son  of  the  first  minister,  who  had  received  his  literary  and  theological 
education  chiefly  under  the  tuition  of  Clark,  himself  an  university- 
bred  man,  took  pastoral  charge  of  the  new  West  Parish  in  London 
derry.  Two  meeting-houses  had  already  been  built  in  this  parish 
— one  on  Aiken's  Range,  and  the  other,  called  the  Hill  Meeting 
house,  nearly  a  mile  west.  Here  were  the  seeds  of  a  deep-seated 
and  long-continued  quarrel.  Moreover,  there  was  great  dissatisfac 
tion  with  Mr.  Davidson,  the  third  pastor  in  the  old  parish.  The 
population  was  increasing,  and  was  already  beginning  to  diffuse 
itself  into  new  settlements  in  the  neighborhood.  At  a  sacramental 
season  in  1734,  only  fifteen  years  from  the  first  settlement,  there 
were  present,  according  to  the  church  records,  seven  hundred  com 
municants.  The  everlasting  place-of-the-meeting-house  question, 
which  has  wrought  more  plague  and  alienation  in  New  England 
than  all  theological  dogmas  put  together,  was  stirring  up  the  min 
isters  and  the  sessions  and  the  people  into  a  hotch-potch ;  and  this, 
as  at  Worcester,  with  other  matters  of  disagreement,  intensified  the 
spirit  of  separation,  and  multiplied  in  course  of  time  new  colonies 
going  forth  to  post  themselves  elsewhere.  During  the  quarter- 
century  preceding  the  Revolution,  ten  distinct  settlements  were 
made  by  emigrants  from  Londonderry,  all  of  which  became  towns 
of  influence  and  importance  in  New  Hampshire.  Two  strong  town 
ships  in  Vermont,  and  two  in  Nova  Scotia,  were  settled  from  the 
same  source  within  the  same  time  ;  besides  which,  numerous  families, 


30  SCOTCH-IRISH    IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

sometimes  singly  and  sometimes  in  groups,  went  off  in  all  directions, 
especially  northward  and  westward,  up  the  Connecticut  Biver  and 
over  the  ridge  of  the  Green  Mountains,  to  carry  everywhere  the 
sturdy  qualities,  the  fixed  opinions,  and  the  lasting  grudges  charac 
teristic  of  Scotch-Irishmen. 

Neither  the  crown  nor  the  colonies  ever  appealed  in  vain  to 
these  brave  people,  now  widely  scattered,  for  help  in  the  old  French 
wars.  Not  a  route  to  Ticonderoga  or  Crown  Point  but  was  tramped 
again  and  again  by  the  firm-set  feet  of  these  New  England  Prot 
estants.  They  were  with  Colonel  Williams  in  the  "  bloody  morning 
scout "  at  the  head  of  Lake  George  in  1755,  and  in  the  battle  with 
Dieskau  that  followed :  they  were  with  Stark  and  Lord  Howe  under 
Abercrombie  in  the  terrible  defeat  at  Ticonderoga  in  1758 ;  many  of 
them  toiled  under  General  Amherst  at  his  great  stone  fort  at  Crown 
Point  in  1759,  whose  broken  ruins  even  astound  us  to-day;  and 
others  still  were  with  General  Wolfe  on.  the  Heights  of  Abraham 
the  same  year,  where  and  when  was  fought  the  most  vital  and  de 
cisive  battle  ever  seen  upon  this  continent.  Major  Eobert  Eogers, 
the  famous  commander  of  the  three  companies  of  rangers  raised  by 
New  Hampshire  in  1756,  was  himself  a  native  of  Londonderry,  and 
most  of  his  men  were  enlisted  in  the  same  locality. 

When  it  came  to  the  Eevolution,  however,  Eogers's  loyalty  to 
the  English  king,  for  whom  he  had  risked  his  life  in  numberless 
scouts  and  fights,  overrode  his  sense  of  the  grievance  of  the  colonies, 
and  he  was  proscribed  as  a  Tory  by  the  act  of  New  Hampshire. 
Not  so  John  Stark.  Stark  was  captain  of  one  of  Eogers's  companies 
of  rangers,  and  at  one  time  commanded  the  whole  corps,  with  the 
rank  of  major.  Eogers  went  to  England  in  1777,  and  Stark,  the 
same  year,  went  to  Bennington  !  In  August  next  will  be  consecrated 
there,  with  fitting  ceremonial,  to  national  and  local  liberty,  a  lime 
stone  shaft  three  hundred  and  one  feet  high,  whose  foundations  are 
cut  into  the  solid  and  everlasting  rock  —  a  shaft  paid  for  from  out 
the  treasuries  of  the  three  states  which  furnished  Stark  his  men  for 
that  fight ;  from  out  the  treasury  of  the  United  States,  under  whose 
colors,  a  little  later,  he  fought  Burgoyne  in  person  at  Saratoga,  and 
from  out  the  scattered  contributions  of  patriotic  men  and  women  all 
over  the  land ;  a  shaft  which  will  stand  a  silent  witness  for  many 
things  and  many  men  —  for  the  Berkshire  militia,  for  the  Green 
Mountain  Boys  and  the  Catamount  tavern,  but  most  of  all  for  John 
Stark,  the  most  distinguished  Scotch-Irishman  of  New  England,  a 
native  of  Londonderry,  and  for  the  seventy  Derry  volunteers  who 
went  with  him  to  Bennington,  and  whose  names  are  of  record,  and 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN    NEW   ENGLAND.  31 

for  Eobert  McGregor,  a  grandson  of  the  old  pastor,  who  was  on 
Stark's  staff  in  1777  ! 

Colonel  George  Reid,  another  native  of  Londonderry,  pure  blood, 
held  a  command  in  the  New  Hampshire  forces  during  the  entire  war 
of  the  Revolution ;  was  in  the  battles  of  Bunker  Hill,  Long  Island, 
White  Plains,  Trenton,  Braiidywine,  Germantown,  Saratoga,  and 
Stillwater ;  was  with  the  army  in  all  their  hardships  at  Valley 
Forge  during  the  severe  winter  of  ?77-'78.  He  took  an  efficient 
part  in  Sullivan's  expedition  against  the  Six  Nations,  and  was  in 
chief  command  at  Albany  during  the  last  summer  of  the  war.  After 
ward  he  was  appointed  by  his  old  commander  and  companion-in 
arms,  General  Sullivan,  then  president  of  the  state  of  New  Hamp 
shire,  to  command,  as  brigadier-general,  all  the  forces  of  the  state 
in  a  most  critical  juncture  of  the  civil  and  military  affairs  of  that 
section. 

It  is  not  so  generally  known  that  James  Miller,  who  brought  out 
more  reputation  from  our  last  war  with  Great  Britain  at  the  northward 
than  any  other  American  save  Winfield  Scott,  was  a  Scotch-Irishman 
out  of  the  loins  of  Londonderry.  He  was  born  in  Peterborough, 
N.  H.,  in  1776 ;  studied  for  a  while  in  his  youth  at  Williams  College, 
in  Massachusetts ;  became  interested  more  or  less  in  military  affairs, 
and  was  recommended  to  the  War  Department  at  Washington  by 
General  Benjamin  Pierce,  father  of  the  late  President,  and  was  com 
missioned  major  in  the  Fourth  U.  S.  Infantry,  March  3,  1809,  the 
last  day  of  Jefferson's  administration.  The  war  with  England  soon 
breaking  out,  young  Miller  was  ordered  to  Indiana  Territory  under 
General  Harrison,  and  his  regiment  was  in  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe. 
Under  General  Hull  at  Detroit,  James  Miller  and  Lewis  Cass,  both 
young  officers  in  the  army,  and  the  two  becoming  thereafter  life 
long  friends,  planted  with  their  hands  the  United  States  flag  on 
Canada  soil,  at  Sandwich,  July  14,  1812.  Both  were  afterward 
taken  prisoners  with  Hull,  though  Cass  snapped  his  sword  before 
surrendering  it;  and  both  made  public  complaint  of  what  they 
deemed  the  cowardice  of  Hull,  on  the  basis  of  which  and  other  like 
testimony  he  was  tried  by  court-martial  and  condemned,  but  was 
pardoned  by  the  President,  and  lived  to  vindicate  his  action  in  a 
pamphlet  now  generally  regarded  as  exculpatory  and  triumphant. 

After  Miller  was  exchanged  he  was  put  into  command  of  the 
Twenty-seventh  Regulars,  and  ordered  to  the  Niagara  frontier  under 
General  Jacob  Brown.  The  story  of  the  battle  of  Lundy's  Lane  is 
known  to  all  Americans ;  but  I  have  recently  had  the  pleasure  of 
reading  a  letter  written  by  Colonel  Miller  three  or  four  days  after 


32  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

the  battle  to  his  wife  —  "My  Beloved  Buth" — in  which  he  gives 
interesting  details  of  the  storming  of  the  battery  and  the  capture  of 
the  cannon,  which  are  not  down  in  the  books.  Brown's  order  to 
him,  as  he  transcribes  it  for  his  wife,  is  a  little  different  from  what 
it  stands  in  the  histories  —  "Colonel,  take  your  regiment,  storm 
that  work,  and  take  it !  "  "  I'll  try,  sir ! " 

With  three  hundred  men  he  moved  steadily  up  the  hill  in  the 
darkness,  along  a  fence  lined  with  thick  bushes,  that  hid  his  troops 
from  the  view  of  the  gunners  and  their  protectors,  who  lay  near. 
When  within  short  musket  range  of  the  battery,  they  could  see  the 
gunners,  with  their  glowing  linstocks  ready  to  act  at  the  word  Fire  ! 
Selecting  good  marksmen,  Miller  directed  each  to  rest  his  rifle  on 
the  fence,  select  a  gunner,  and  fire  at  a  given  signal.  Very  soon 
every  gunner  fell,  when  the  colonel  and  his  men  rushed  forward  and 
captured  the  battery  —  not,  however,  until  a  terrible  hand-to-hand 
fight  in  the  darkness  with  the  protectors  of  the  guns  had  ensued. 
The  British  fell  back.  Rallying,  and  being  re-inforced  by  three 
hundred  men  sent  forward  by  Drummond  at  Queen stown,  they  were 
repulsed  the  second  time.  Let  Miller  tell  the  rest  of  the  story  in 
words  to  his  wife :  "  After  Generals  Brown,  Scott,  and  others  were 
wounded,  we  were  ordered  to  return  back  to  our  camp,  about  three 
miles  [Chippewa],  and  preparations  had  not  been  made  for  taking 
off  the  cannon,  as  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  defend  them  and  make 
preparations  for  that  too,  and  they  were  all  left  on  the  ground, 
except  one  beautiful  six-pounder,  which  was  presented  to  my  regi 
ment  in  testimony  of  their  distinguished  gallantry.  The  officers 
of  this  army  all  say,  who  saw  it,  that  it  was  one  of  the  most 
desperate  and  gallant  acts  ever  known ;  the  British  officers  whom 
we  have  prisoners  say  it  was  the  most  desperate  thing  they  ever 
saw  or  heard  of.  General  Brown  told  me  the  moment  he  saw  me 
that  I  had  immortalized  myself.  'But,'  said  he,  <my  dear  fellow, 
my  heart  ached  for  you  when  I  gave  you  that  order,  but  I  knew  it 
was  the  only  thing  that  would  save  us.' " 

Miller  had  indeed  immortalized  himself  already ;  and  five  years 
later,  in  the  piping  times  of  peace,  he  resigned  his  commission  in  the 
army,  an  act  he  regretted  as  long  as  he  lived,  and  received  the  ap 
pointment  of  Governor  of  Arkansas,  a  place  he  held  for  four  years. 
He  returned  to  New  Hampshire,  an  invalid,  in  1823,  and  received 
the  appointment  of  national  collector  at  Salem  and  Beverly  in  Massa 
chusetts,  a  post  he  held  foi  twenty-four  years,  when  he  resigned, 
and  was  succeeded  by  his  youngest  son,  who  held  it  eight  years 
longer.  He  was  doubly  immortalized  in  this  last  period  of  his  life 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  33 

by  having  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  a  subordinate  in  the  custom-house, 
"  a  chiel  amang  them  taking  notes "  ;  and  the  notices  of  James 
Miller  in  the  miscellaneous  writings  of  Hawthorne  honor  the  pen 
and  heart  of  the  one  as  much  as  the  life  and  conduct  of  the  other. 
Miller  died  7th  July,  1851,  and  lies  buried  in  Salem.  He  was  a 
Scotch-Irishman  indeed,  in  whom  was  no  guile. 

Londonderry  and  the  towns  populated  from  it  have  furnished 
ornaments  to  society  all  over  New  England  in  every  walk  of  life. 
Let  me  rather  say,  all  over  the  country,  particularly  North  and 
Middle  and  West.  I  will  only  mention  two  by  name  in  this  con 
nection,  Horace  Greeley  and  George  W.  Nesmith.  Greeley  was  a 
man  known  and  read  of  all  men.  His  faults  were  as  open  as  his 
virtues,  and  both  rested  back  alike  upon  a  true  and  rough  manhood. 

"  Strong-armed  as  Thor  —  a  shower  of  fire 

His  smitten  anvil  flung  ; 

God's  curse,  Earth's  wrong,  dumb  Hunger's  ire — 
He  gave  them  all  a  tongue  !  " 

George  W.  Nesmith  died  only  a  month  ago,  in  his  ninetieth  year, 
and  passed  his  life  in  the  near  neighborhood  of  Daniel  Webster's 
birthplace  in  New  Hampshire,  both  of  them  graduates  of  Dartmouth 
College,  and  the  two  remarkably  intimate  with  each  other  till 
Webster's  death  in  1852,  though  Nesmith  was  by  much  the  younger 
man.  In  the  very  crisis  of  the  fate  of  his  college,  Webster  defended 
and  emancipated  it  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States ; 
perhaps  in  part  from  that  very  reason,  so  strongly  was  the  younger 
man  drawn  toward  the  traditions  of  the  elder.  Nesmith  flung  his 
old  age,  till  the  very  last,  into  a  supreme  effort  to  sweeten  and 
harmonize  troubles  that  have  come  upon  his  college,  not  troubles  of 
the  same  crucial  type  as  struck  it  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  century, 
but  still  troubles  that  impede  its  usefulness  and  lessen  its  prestige. 

I  have  no  list  of  the  governors  of  New  Hampshire  from  1775, 
when  all  direct  authority  of  the  British  crown  was  suppressed  there, 
and  even  if  I  had  I  could  not  certainly  tell  what  proportion  of  them 
have  been  of  Scotch-Irish  origin ;  but  I  have  been  pretty  familiar 
with  the  names  of  New  Hampshire  governors  for  fifty  years,  and  I 
venture  in  this  great  presence  the  historical  conjecture,  that  nearly, 
if  not  quite,  one-half  of  them  from  that  day  to  this  have  been  of 
our  own  strain  of  blood. 

3.  KENXEBEC  COUNTRY.  Full  as  New  Hampshire  became  of 
the  Scotch-Irish,  especially  in  the  southern  and  eastern  halves  of  it, 
it  is  likely  that  this  element  became  still  more  predominant  in  what 


34  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

is  now  the  state  of  Maine.  We  have  already  noted  the  but  half- 
suppressed  anxiety  of  Governor  Shute  at  Boston  to  get  as  many  as 
possible  of  the  five  ship-loads  into  his  province  to  the  eastward,  as  a 
frontier-barrier  against  the  French  and  Indians  of  Canada.  Although 
many  of  the  supposed  three  hundred  persons  who  wintered  in  the 
harbor  of  Portland  returned  the  next  spring  to  the  Merrimac  to 
settle  Londonderry,  some  of  them  remained  in  Maine.  We  know 
certainly,  that  John  Armstrong,  Robert  Means,  William  Jameson, 
Joshua  Gray,  William  Gyles,  and  a  McDonald  remained  and  founded 
families  in  Portland.  James  Armstrong,  for  example,  an  infant 
son  of  John,  was  born  in  Ireland  in  1717,  and  the  parents  had  a  son 
Thomas,  born  in  Portland  in  1719.  It  is  pretty  certain,  also,  that 
parts  of  that  company  were  left  on  points  along  Casco  Bay  and  the 
mouth  of  the  Kennebec,  at  or  near  Wiscasset,  before  the  main  part 
returned  to  the  Merrimac. 

We  happen  to  know  with  almost  absolute  certainty  the  fortunes 
of  one  of  the  families  left  behind  in  Portland,  when  the  future  Lon 
donderry  settlers  returned  to  Massachusetts.  This  was  the  family 
of  Joshua  Gray.  He  had  a  Celtic-Irish  wife,  and  a  large  family. 
The  names  of  the  sons  of  this  family  were  Reuben,  Andrew,  James, 
John,  Samuel,  and  Joshua.  In  the  spring  of  1759,  the  year  of 
Wolfe's  battle  on  the  Heights  of  Abraham,  Governor  Pownall,  of 
Massachusetts,  fitted  out  an  expedition  of  three  hundred  and  ninety- 
five  men  in  order  to  capture  from  the  French  the  mouth  of  the 
Penobscot  River.  They  left  Portland  May  4,  and  arrived  at  Wasa- 
umkeag  Point,  May  17.  Among  the  enlisted  men  were  Andrew  and 
Reuben  Gray.  In  Governor  Pownall's  journal  may  be  found  the 
following:  "May  26.  Visited  Pentaget  with  Captain  Cargill  and 
twenty  men.  Found  the  old  abandoned  French  Fort,  and  some 
abandoned  settlements.  Went  ashore  into  the  Fort.  Hoisted  the 
King's  Colours  there  and  drank  the  King's  health.  Embarked  in 
the  sloop  King  George  for  Boston." 

The  place  thus  described  is  now  known  as  Castine,  from  Baron 
Castine,  whose  name  is  a  very  familiar  one  along  the  eastern  coast 
of  Maine ;  and  among  the  twenty  men  who  accompanied  Governor 
Pownall  on  that  occasion  was  Reuben  Gray.  A  strong  fort  was 
planted  at  Wasaumkeag  Point,  and  the  work  of  building  it  was 
carried  forward  so  diligently,  that  it  was  completed  July  5,  1759, 
the  expense  being  five  thousand  pounds.  A  garrison  was  kept  there 
until  1775,  when  the  fort  was  dismantled  by  Commodore  Mowett  in 
a  British  man-of-war,  and  later  in  the  same  year  entirely  destroyed 
by  Colonel  Cargill  of  New  Castle.  The  building  of  this  fort  marked 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  35 

the  beginning  of  settlements  by  the  English  around  the  Penobscot 
Bay  and  Biver  region,  the  first  settlers  being  members  of  the  military 
expedition,  who,  on  being  discharged,  established  themselves  near 
the  fort,  where  their  homes  could  have  its  protection  against  the 
French  and  Indians.  The  two  Gray  brothers,  Reuben  and  Andrew, 
being  of  a  venturesome  disposition,  crossed  the  bay  and  located  at 
what  is  now  called  Penobscot,  and  were  the  first  settlers  of  English 
origin  to  build  their  homes  011  that  historic  peninsula.  Several 
brothers  of  Reuben  and  Andrew  followed  them  to  the  Penobscot, 
and  at  last,  also,  their  old  father  and  mother.  The  distinction  is 
claimed  for  Reuben's  son,  Reuben  Gray,  2d,  of  being  the  first  male 
child  of  English  parentage  born  east  of  the  Penobscot  River,  the 
date  of  his  birth  being  1762.  The  old  father,  Joshua,  died  about 
the  opening  of  the  Revolution,  but  the  Irish  widow  continued  until 
after  the  close  of  the  war.  The  first  Reuben  seems  to  have  died 
about  1820,  and  the  second  certainly  in  1858 ;  and  about  ten  years 
ago,  as  my  two  oldest  boys,  with  other  students  of  Williams  College, 
were  making  sailing  excursions  along  the  coast  of  Maine,  they  ran 
across,  at  Brooksville,  within  the  mouth  of  the  Penobscot,  Captain 
Abner  Gray,  son  of  the  second  Reuben,  then  nearly  eighty-five,  as 
straight  as  an  arrow,  helpful  and  hospitable ;  and  that  chance 
acquaintance  led  to  the  correspondence  that  has  given  us  these  facts 
about  the  Scotch-Irish  on  the  Penobscot.  The  Grays  of  this  very 
family  are  still  in  large  numbers  in  Brooksville  and  Bucksport,  on 
the  lower  Penobscot ;  and  so  are  Wears,  and  Orrs,  and  Doaks,  and 
other  Scotch-Irish  families. 

In  published  extracts  from  court  records  of  the  Province  of 
Maine  I  have  read  the  affidavits  of  several  of  the  early  inhabitants, 
who  stated  that  they  came  to  Boston  in  August,  1718,  from  Ulster, 
and  thence  that  autumn  to  Maine,  where  they  settled  in  Bruns 
wick  and  that  neighborhood;  which  is  another  independent  evi 
dence  that  parts  of  our  now  famous  five  ship-loads  furnished  the 
first  Scotch-Irish  settlers  of  Maine,  as  well  as  of  New  Hampshire 
and  Massachusetts. 

The  next  attempt  to  introduce  this  class  of  immigrants  into 
Maine  seems  to  have  been  from  a  source  entirely  independent  of  the 
previous  one,  though  nearly  contemporaneous  with  it.  Robert  Tem 
ple,  who  had  been  an  officer  in  the  English  army,  and  was  a  gentle 
man  of  family,  was  a  leader  in  the  enterprise.  His  motive  was  to 
establish  himself  as  a  large  landed  proprietor  in  this  country.  He 
says  in  a  letter  to  the  Plymouth  proprietors :  "  In  September,  1717, 
I  contracted  with  Captain  James  Luzmore,  of  Topsham,  to  bring 


36  SCOTCH-IRISH  IN  NEW   ENGLAND. 

me,  my  servants,  and  what  little  effects  I  had  to  Boston."  "My 
eye,"  he  continues,  "  was  always  toward  a  good  tract  of  land  as  well 
as  a  convenient  place  for  navigation."  Returning  from  an  examina 
tion  of  Connecticut,  he  says:  "I  was  resolved  to  see  the  eastern 
country  also  before  I  should  determine  where  to  begin  my  settle 
ment."  The  proprietors  of  the  west  banks  of  the  Kennebec  took 
him  down  to  see  their  land ;  but  he  gave  the  ultimate  preference  to 
land  on  the  east  side  of  the  river,  which  belonged  to  Colonel  Hutch- 
inson  and  the  Plymouth  Company,  and  he  became  a  partner  in  that 
concern  and  engaged  to  bring  a  colony  to  it.  Within  two  years  he 
chartered  five  large  ships  to  bring  over  families  from  Ulster  to  carry 
on  the  settlement.  They  were  the  same  sort  of  people  that  came  to 
Boston,  and  from  the  same  general  localities.  During  the  two  years, 
1719  and  1720,  several  hundred  families  were  landed  on  the  shores 
of  the  Kennebec  from  its  mouth  to  Merry  meeting  Bay.  Many  of 
the  families  settled  in  what  is  now  Topsham,  which  received  its 
name  from  Temple's  place  of  departure  on  his  first  voyage,  the  port 
of  Exeter  in  Devonshire ;  another  portion  settled  in  the  northerly 
part  of  Bath,  on  a  tract  of  land  stretching  along  on  Merrymeeting 
Bay  to  the  Androscoggin,  and  was  called  Cork,  and  sometimes  Ire 
land,  from  the  country  of  the  settlers,  which  name  it  still  retains ; 
and  still  others  straggled  along  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  bay  and 
river,  and  descendants  of  these  still  occupy  and  improve  portions  of 
the  country.  The  familiar  Scotch  names,  McFadden,  McGowen, 
McCoun,  Vincent,  Hamilton,  Johnston,  Malcolm,  McClellan,  Craw 
ford,  Graves,  Ward,  Given,  Dunning,  Simpson,  still  live  to  remind 
the  present  generation  of  the  land  from  which  their  ancestors  came. 
Unhappily,  the  Indian  troubles,  which  we  call  "Lovell's  War," 
commenced  shortly  after  Temple's  people  got  fairly  seated  on  the 
Kennebec,  broke  up  some  of  the  settlements,  which  had  begun  to 
assume  a  flourishing  aspect,  and  scattered  away  many  colonists  from 
the  rest ;  some  of  these  sought  a  refuge  with  their  countrymen  at 
Londonderry,  N.  H.,  but  the  greatest  part  of  them  removed  to  Penn- 
-  sylvania ;  Brunswick  and  Georgetown  were  destroyed  and  deserted ; 
in  the  summer  of  1722,  nine  families  were  captured  at  one  time  by 
the  Indians  in  Merrymeeting  Bay ;  but  Temple  himself  and  many 
of  his  people  remained,  and  the  descendants  of  both  have  connected 
their  names  indissolubly  with  Bowdoin  College  in  Brunswick,  and 
with  both  state  and  church  in  Maine.  Temple  himself  received  a 
military  commission  from  Governor  Shute,  and  rendered  good  service 
in  the  defense  of  his  adopted  country.  His  posterity  have  served  it 
long  and  well.  His  eldest  son,  Robert,  married  a  daughter  of  Gov- 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  37 

ernor  Shirley ;  the  second  son,  John,  lived  to  become  a  baronet,  and 
married  a  daughter  of  Governor  Bowdoin,  of  Massachusetts.  Their 
daughter,  Elizabeth,  married  Thomas  D.  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts, 
and  those  are  the  parents  of  Eobert  C.  Winthrop,  of  Boston. 

After  the  breaking  up  of  the  Norridgewock  tribe  on  the  Upper 
Kennebec,  some  of  Temple's  Scotch  settlers  returned  to  the  deserted 
places  on  the  eastern  shore,  and  new  adventurers  sought  the  vacant 
seats.  In  1729,  Colonel  Dunbar,  a  native  of  Ireland,  of  Scottish 
descent,  in  the  hope  of  separating  Maine  from  the  Massachusetts 
government,  obtained  a  commission  from  the  crown  as  governor  of 
the  territory.  He  had  previously  been  commissioned  as  surveyor- 
general  of  the  woods,  with  a  view  to  preserve  the  pine  timber  for 
the  British  navy.  He  selected  Fort  Frederick,  at  Peinaquid,  as  the 
seat  of  his  government,  and  was  placed  in  possession  by  a  detach 
ment  of  troops  from  Nova  Scotia,  in  1730.  Eightful  were  the  claims 
of  Massachusetts  to  the  eastern  shore ;  but  Dunbar  took  immediate 
measures  to  occupy  and  improve  the  lands  in  his  new  province  by 
inviting  his  countrymen,  the  Scotch-Irish,  to  settle  upon  them 
through  liberal  inducements  both  of  lands  and  privileges.  He 
granted  one-hundred-acre  lots  on  Pemaquid  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  fort,  laid  out  and  improved  a  large  farm  for  himself,  and  ceded 
to  his  countrymen,  Montgomery  and  Campbell  and  McCobb,  large 
tracts,  which  soon  became  towns.  In  the  course  of  two  or  three 
years,  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  families,  principally  *  of 
Scotch  descent,  were  introduced  into  this  territory.  Some  were 
drawn  from  the  older  settlements  of  the  stock  in  Massachusetts  and 
New  Hampshire,  and  some  were  fresh  colonists  from  Ireland.  These 
had  their  pastor,  Eev.  Kobert  Rutherford,  and  their  Presbyterian 
institutions,  which  they  cherished  with  great  tenacity  for  a  long 
time.  Among  these  families  were  McClintocks,  Hustons,  McLeans, 
McKeens,  Caldwells,  Dicks,  Forbushes,  Browns,  Mclntyres,  and 
McFarlands. 

Massachusetts  continued  to  protest  against  the  government  of 
Dunbar,  excellent  as  were  its  results,  and  it  was  terminated  in 
August,  1732,  and  jurisdiction  restored  to  Massachusetts.  Dunbar 
returned  to  England  in  1737,  where,  like  Penn,  he  was  committed  to 
prison  for  debt,  but  afterward  released  through  the  liberality  of  his 
friends,  and  in  1743  was  appointed  governor  of  St.  Helena,  an  Eng 
lish  island  since  rendered  famous  by  the  exile  of  a  more  distinguished 
ruler  than  this  early  Scotch-Irish  governor  of  Maine. 

Samuel  Waldo,  who  had  been  a  sort  of  agent  of  Massachusetts  in 
displacing  Dunbar,  and  who  had  an  interest  in  the  territory  as  a 


38  SCOTCH-IRISH    IN   NEW    ENGLAND. 

patentee,  and  who  had  seen  the  benefit  arising  from  the  admirable 
class  of  immigrants  whom  Dunbar  had  introduced,  proceeded  to 
profit  by  the  example  in  respect  to  his  own  ample  possessions  lying 
between  the  St.  George  and  the  Penobscot  rivers.  In  1734,  Waldo 
carefully  examined  the  resources  of  his  land  grant,  and  fortunately 
discovered  the  invaluable  quarries  of  limestone,  which  have  proven 
from  that  day  to  this  day  a  source  of  continued  riches  and  progress 
to  the  inhabitants  of  that  peninsula.  The  first  movements  in  the 
manufacture  of  lime  there,  which  are  now  so  extended,  and  which 
seem  at  present  to  claim  the  attention  of  our  legislators  at  Washing 
ton,  was  so  small  that  the  lime  was  shipped  to  Boston  in  molasses 
casks.  The  St.  George  River,  on  which  the  first  settlements  were 
made,  is  a  plunging  stream,  and  afforded  then  and  now  fine  mill 
sites  for  handling  both  wood  and  stone,  and  the  near  forests  gave  an 
abundant  supply  of  timber. 

Waldo's  first  settlers  upon  his  eastern  grant  were  all  of  Scotch 
descent  from  the  North  of  Ireland  —  some  of  them  of  recent  immi 
gration,  and  others  had  been  in  the  country  from  the  first  arrival  in 
Boston  in  1718.  The  company  consisted  of  twenty-seven  families, 
arrived  upon  the  spot  in  1735,  and  each  family  furnished  with  one 
hundred  acres  of  land  on  the  banks  of  the  St.  George,  in  the  present 
town  of  Warren,  Maine.  The  names  of  some  of  these  pioneers  will 
show  to  those  familiar  with  the  history  of  Maine  how  much  the 
state  is  indebted  to  this  enterprising  proprietor,  Samuel  Waldo,  for 
placing  in  permanent  contact  with  the  soil  these  most  useful  settlers. 
Among  the  names  are  Alexander,  Blair,  Kilpatrick,  North,  Patterson, 
Nelson,  Starrett,  Howard,  McLean,  Spear,  Creighton,  McCracken, 
and  Morrison.  The  Old  French  War  broke  out  in  1744,  which 
greatly  interrupted  developments  in  Maine  for  ten  years,  when 
Waldo  went  to  Scotland  again,  and  formed  a  company  of  sixty 
adults  and  many  children,  who  reached  St.  George's  river  in  Sep 
tember,  1753,  and  were  settled  in  the  western  part  of  Warren,  to 
which  they  gave  the  name  of  Stirling,  the  ancient  royal  city  of  their 
country.  These  were  mostly  mechanics ;  the  names  of  some  of 
them  were  Anderson,  Malcolm,  Crawford,  Miller,  Auchmutey,  Cars- 
well,  and  Johnston;  and  this  we  believe  to  be  the  last  immigration 
into  New  England  of  people  of  Scottish  extraction,  in  any  consider 
able  number,  prior  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolutionary  War. 

From  these  three  centers  of  diffusion,  now  briefly  indicated  — 
Worcester,  Londonderry,  Wiscasset  —  the  Scotch-Irish  element  pen 
etrated  and  permeated  all  parts  of  New  England :  Maine  the  most 
of  all,  New  Hampshire  next,  then  Massachusetts,  and  then  in  les- 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  39 

sening  order  Vermont  and  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island.  They 
were  all  in  general  one  sort  of  people.  They  belonged  to  one  grade 
and  sphere  of  life.  They  were  for  the  most  part  very  poor  in  this 
world's  goods.  The  vast  majority  of  all  the  adults,  however,  could 
read  and  write.  If  they  had  but  one  book  to  a  family,  that  book 
was  surely  the  Bible,  which  is  itself,  as  we  sometimes  forget,  a  large 
collection  of  books  of  very  varied  character ;  and  if  there  were  two 
volumes  to  a  family,  the  second  place  in  most  cases  was  disputed 
between  Fox's  "Book  of  Martyrs"  and  Bunyan's  "Pilgrim's  Prog 
ress."  Their  personal  habits,  their  mental  characteristics,  their 
religious  beliefs  and  experiences,  and  their  very  superstitions,  were 
held  largely  in  common ;  and  all  these  were  in  more  or  less  pro 
nounced  contrast  with  corresponding  traits  of  the  English  Puritans 
who  had  nestled  before  them  in  most  parts  of  New  England. 

So  far  as  their  physical  natures  went,  they  had  received  in  the 
old  country  a  splendid  outfit  for  the  race  of  life,  in  large  bones  and 
strong  teeth,  and  a  digestive  apparatus  the  envy  of  the  mountain 
bears.  Men  and  women  both  were  trained  to  an  almost  tireless 
physical  industry.  The  struggle  for  physical  subsistence  had  been 
with  them  no  mere  figure  of  speech.  First  of  European  countries, 
the  potato  had  been  found  by  Ireland,  to  which  it  had  been  brought 
from  Virginia  by  slave-trader  Hawkins  in  1565,  an  invaluable  re 
source  of  food  for  the  poor;  and  each  and  every  company  of 
Scotch-Irish  brought  with  them  to  New  England,  as  a  part  of  the 
indispensable  outfit,  some  tubers  of  this  esculent,  which  they  prized 
beyond  price.  The  pine  lands  of  New  England,  which  are  always 
sandy,  are  adapted  to  the  potato  ;  and  if  there  were  no  suffering 
from  hunger  in  those  large  families  during  the  first  years  of  their 
sojourn,  it  should  doubtless  be  put  to  the  credit  of  the  easily- 
cultivated,  much-multiplying  Irish  potato ! 

Each  and  every  company  of  these  people  brought  also  with  them 
into  New  England  the  agricultural  implements  needful  for  the  cul 
ture  of  the  flax-plant,  and  the  small  wheels  for  spinning  the  flax-fiber, 
and  the  looms  for  weaving  the  linen  textures.  Nothing  connected 
with  the  newcomers  excited  so  much  interest  in  English  and  Puritan 
Boston,  in  1718,  and  the  three  following  years,  as  the  small  wheels 
worked  by  women  and  propelled  by  the  foot,  for  turning  the  straight 
flax-fibers  into  thread.  There  was  a  public  exhibition  of  their  skill 
in  spinning  flax,  by  the  Scotch-Irish  women,  on  Boston  Common  in 
the  spring  of  1719,  at  which  prizes  were  awarded  to  the  foremost. 
Drake's  "Boston"  gives  an  account  of  the  sensation  produced  by 
the  advent  of  this  strange  machine  there,  and  of  societies  and  schools 


40  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

formed  to  teach  the  art  of  thus  making  linen  thread.  For  four 
years  the  novelty  exercised  its  fascination,  and  the  first  ladies  of 
the  town  paraded  on  the  Common  to  exhibit  their  newly-learned  art, 
derived  from  their  stalwart  sisters  from  over  the  sea.  It  is  not 
historically  set  down  in  the  records  in  so  many  words,  but  at  this 
safe  distance,  and  (as  it  were)  under  the  protection  of  the  guns  of 
Fort  Duquesne,  we  may  venture  the  assertion,  that  the  Boston  girls 
were  hard  to  beat  in  their  newly-found  and  most  useful  avocation ! 

It  is  time  now  to  conclude  this  paper,  perhaps  too  long  already, 
with  some  brief  points  of  reference  to  common  traits  among  them, 
to  characteristics,  some  good,  some  bad,  but  very  few  indifferent ! 
It  is  perfectly  plain  at  every  point  of  their  settlement  alongside  the 
previous  English  Puritan,  that  they  pretty  soon  excited  prejudice 
against  themselves,  sometimes  disgust,  and  sometimes  even  hate. 
The  natural  result  of  this  was  to  throw  them  more  and  more  upon 
each  other  in  intermarriage,  in  a  community  of  residence  and  of 
interest  and  of  feeling;  so  that  they  did  not  coalesce  very  readily 
with  other  strains  of  blood  and  with  other  sects  of  Christians,  so 
that  they  tended  to  keep  up  acquaintance  in  families  from  genera 
tion  to  generation,  even  when  separated  locally ;  and,  consequently, 
the  very  traits  themselves,  the  peculiarities,  tended  to  preserve  and 
perpetuate  themselves  for  the  ends  of  a  later  critical  study  and  record. 

a.  In  the  first  place,  what  is  the  contemporary  testimony  of  the 
senses  of  those  who  came  into  personal  contact  with  our  Scotch-Irish 
ancestors  who  settled  New  England?  The  late  Mr.  Jewell,  of 
Hartford,  Conn.,  who  was  a  tanner  by  trade,  was  sent  by  his  country 
as  a  minister  plenipotentiary  to  the  court  of  St.  Petersburg ;  being 
a  Yankee,  and  "  wanting  to  know  you  know,"  and  being  a  tanner  in 
possession  of  most  of  the  profitable  secrets  of  his  guild,  he  went  to 
Eussia  determined  to  avail  himself  of  all  his  official  and  personal 
chances  to  find  out  the  chemical  composition  and  proportions  of  the 
tanning  materials  that  give  the  peculiar  odor  and  character  to  what 
is  called  "  Russia  leather " ;  but  this  was  a  national  secret  exceed 
ingly  profitable  to  the  Muscovites ;  genial  and  precious  as  was  dear 
Mr.  Jewell,  they  would  tell  him  nothing,  but  they  would  show  him 
everything  —  were  not  Russia  and  the  United  States  traditional  and 
everlasting  friends  ?  Mr.  Jewell  told  us  himself  on  his  return  that 
he  literally  "followed  his  nose"  in  those  Russian  leather  establish 
ments  ;  what  he  learned  in  this  way  he  did  not  impart  except  to  his 
partners,  but  he  rightly  considered  the  process  to  be  one  of  induc 
tive  reasoning,  the  results  of  which  were  scientific  and  satisfactory 
to  himself  and  his  friends ;  in  one  word,  that  logical  inferences  may 


SCOTCH-IRISH  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  41 

be  drawn  from  the  sense  of  smell  as  well  as  from  the  other  senses, 
and  that  he  was  not  shut  up  to  "  ocular  demonstration,"  so  far  as 
the  immemorial  processes  of  tanning  skins  are  concerned. 

It  is  indisputable  that  the  contemporaries  of  our  Scotch-Irish 
ancestors  in  New  England  satisfied  themselves  by  analogous  trains 
of  reasoning  and  conclusion  that,  in  their  new  neighbors'  scale  of 
the  virtues,  personal  cleanliness  was  put  way  down  far  below  god 
liness  !  They  began  with  a  devout  care  of  the  spirit,  and  life  was 
really  not  long  enough  for  them  to  fetch  round  to  a  decent  care  of 
the  flesh !  Wash-bowl  and  pitcher  was  no  part  of  the  common  set- 
out  of  the  newly -married  pair.  In  the  more  progressive  families  an 
iron  skillet  in  the  kitchen  sink  opened  up  a  chance  for  parents  and 
children  to  wash  their  hands  and  faces  in  the  morning,  a  chance,  I 
take  it,  that  rarely  hardened  itself  into  a  rule  for  either.  Ablution 
of  the  whole  body  even  once  a  year,  or  ten  years,  or  a  life-time,  was 
a  thing  practically  unknown  for  three  generations  of  our  ancestral 
fathers  and  mothers.  Tertium  quid  9  This  matter  had  ill  conse 
quences,  of  course,  in  diseases  and  mortality  of  children ;  in  a  disgust 
felt  for  uncleanly  old  people ;  in  an  intolerable  stench  arising  from 
crowded  religious  assemblies,  often  prolonged  for  hours  and  hours  ; 
arid  in  a  prejudice  and  mockery  on  the  part  of  neighbors  trained  in 
and  accustomed  to  more  cleanly  personal  habits. 

For  two  or  three  generations,  at  least,  ordinary  houses  were  not 
provided  with  ordinaries  of  any  kind ;  barns  and  pig-pens  were  in 
close  proximity  to  the  houses,  and  the  two  were  scarcely  discrimi 
nated  from  each  other;  the  methods  of  farming  were  to  the  last 
degree  uncleanly  and  unwholesome  and  disgusting  —  this  is  partic 
ularly  noted  in  regard  to  Londonderry  and  its  neighborhood,  and  I 
know  that  it  was  true  in  relation  to  Worcester.  Their  company 
was  more  or  less  avoided  by  the  English  on  this  account,  and  their 
rights  doubtless  less  respected;  the  intermarriages  that  took  place 
for  two  generations  were  for  the  most  part  with  the  lowest  and 
poorest  of  the  low  and  poor  English;  and  with  the  major  part 
of  this  class  of  people  in  New  England  the  steps  upward  to  the 
daily  bath  and  the  decent  water-closet  have  been  unreasonably  slow 
and  interrupted. 

b.  In  the  second  place,  it  must  be  frankly  admitted,  that  the 
dread  of  water  in  another  sense  of  that  term  greatly  harmed  our 
folks  for  the  first  century  of  their  residence  in  this  land.  They  dis 
criminated  against  water,  in  their  estimate  of  beverages.  Account 
for  it  as  we  may?  high  latitude,  Celtic  restlessness,  strenuous  poverty, 
aspiration  above  realization,  cheap  whisky,  what  not,  the  Scotch  of 


42  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

whatever  origin  and  whatever  residence  grasp  and  hold  too  much 
stimulus  per  capita  of  the  population.  It  was  always  so.  It  is  so 
now.  It  is  not  because  they  are  canny,  and  it  is  not  because  they 
are  Presbyterians.  /  do  not  know  the  reason  ivhy.  If  there  be  one 
man  in  this  vast  assemblage  that  knows  the  reason  and  will  tell  it 
straight,  he  will  immortalize  himself  like  James  Miller,  and  this 
four  days'  meeting  in  this  year  of  grace  will  need  no  other  memo 
rial  till  the  end  of  time  ! 

When  Londonderry  was  incorporated  in  the  name  of  George  III., 
June,  1722,  the  charter  enacted  "that  on  every  Wednesday  of  the 
week  forever  they  may  hold,  keep,  and  enjoy  a  market  for  the  buy 
ing  and  selling  of  goods,  wares,  and  merchandise,  and  various  kinds 
of  creatures,  endowed  with  the  usual  privileges,  profits,  and  immu 
nities,  as  other  market  towns  fully  hold,  possess,  and  enjoy  ;  and  two 
Fairs  annually  forever,  the  first  to  be  held  and  kept  within  the  said 
town  on  the  8th  day  of  November  next,  and  so  annually  forever,  and 
the  other  on  the  8th  day  of  May  in  like  manner.  Provided,  if  it 
should  so  happen,  that  at  any  time  either  of  these  days  fall  on  the 
Lord's  day,  then  the  said  Fair  shall  be  held  and  kept  the  day  follow 
ing  it.  The  said  Fair  shall  have,  hold,  and  enjoy  the  liberties,  priv 
ileges,  and  immunities  as  other  Fairs  in  other  towns  fully  possess, 
hold,  and  enjoy." 

For  more  than  one  hundred  years  these  semi-annual  fairs  were 
maintained  without  a  break.  Their  original  design  was  good; 
namely,  to  afford  opportunity  to  people  of  neighboring  towns  to 
meet  and  exchange  their  commodities  with  each  other  for  a  mutual 
profit  —  and  we  will  just  note  in  passing  that  the  Scotch-Irish  of 
that  day  had  not  made  the  grand  modern  discovery  that  exchange 
of  commodities  is  a  crime  to  be  prevented  by  the  exercise  of  all  the 
powers  of  the  United  States  government.  The  assemblages  at  these 
fairs  were  usually  large ;  merchants  from  Haverhill  and  Salem  and 
Boston  were  present  with  their  goods,  and  every  variety  of  home 
growths  and  manufactures  was  collected  for  exchange.  Everything 
at  first  was  conducted  with  a  decent  order  and  propriety,  although 
the  fair  was  always  held  in  and  around  the  only  tavern  of  the  town, 
and  there  was  always  much  drinking  over  the  bar  and  some  intoxi 
cation.  As  time  went  on  and  as  stores  became  multiplied  in  the 
towns,  and  as  means  of  communication  improved,  the  benefits  of 
these  fairs  and  the  grounds  for  their  maintenance  diminished,  and 
the  obvious  evils  increased,  until  they  proved  a  moral  nuisance, 
attracting  chiefly  the  more  corrupt  portion  of  the  community,  and 
exhibiting  each  year  for  successive  days  scenes  of  vice  and  folly  in 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  43 

some  of  their  worst  forms.  Serious  attempts  were  made  from  time 
to  time  by  the  town  to  mitigate  these  evils,  but  with  little  success. 
In  1798  the  following  vote  was  passed  at  the  annual  town-meeting : 
"  From  the  misconduct  and  disorderly  behavior  of  most  of  the  people 
which  frequent  the  fair,  as  now  holden,  the  good  intention  and 
original  design  are  altogether  defeated,  it  is  hereupon  enacted,  that 
it  shall  be  confined  to  two  days  —  one  day  each  spring  and  fall; 
voted  also,  that  no  booth  shall  be  used  after  9  o'clock  in  the  evening 
of  said  days,  for  selling  merchandise  or  liquor,  or  furnishing  any 
kind  of  entertainment,  without  forfeiting  and  paying  a  fine  of  one 
pound."  Arid  at  last  the  final  suppression  of  the  fair  was  brought 
about  in  1839,  as  the  result  of  the  temperance  reformation  in  Lon 
donderry,  for  when  the  bar  was  removed  from  the  tavern  and  no 
intoxicating  drinks  were  to  be  had  in  the  place,  the  crowds  assem 
bled  as  usual,  but  at  once  withdrew. 

Many  of  the  social  customs  of  our  fathers  indicate  also  a  fond 
ness  for  strong  drink,  which  not  even  their  iron  constitutions  and 
out-of-door  life,  and  in  the  main,  approving  consciences,  could  pre 
vent  from  demoralizing  them.  This  love  of  liquor  was  a  national 
trait.  The  direct  evidence  we  have  on  this  point  relates  more 
particularly  to  Londonderry  and  its  resulting  towns,  but  there  are 
lines  of  proof  that  converge  upon  the  same  point  in  relation  to 
Worcester  and  its  sequels,  and  to  the  Kennebec  and  Penobscot  towns 
as  well.  It  is  true  that,  owing  to  the  difference  in  their  language 
and  habits  and  modes  of  life  from  those  of  their  English  neighbors, 
prejudices  against  these  settlers  were  early  imbibed  and  unreason 
ably  indulged,  and  many  things  in  their  manners  and  practices  were 
grossly  exaggerated  at  the  time  and  falsely  reported  and  believed ; 
we  must  bear  all  this  in  mind  in  weighing  the  evidence,  but  the 
traditions  that  have  come  down  in  certain  families  from  generation 
to  generation,  with  some  of  which  I  became  very  familiar  from 
childhood  to  manhood,  as  well  as  the  written  record  in  all  its  varied 
forms,  can  leave  no  doubt  on  the  minds  of  their  candid  descendants 
that  here  was  a  crevasse  in  the  generally  solid  character  of  their 
moral  build-up.  They  found  or  made  occasion  in  their  marriage 
ceremonies,  in  their  wakes  or  watchings  with  the  dead,  and  in  their, 
funeral  solemnities,  to  partake  of  ardent  spirits  with  such  freedom 
and  frequency  as  were  often  productive  of  most  painful  scenes  and 
serious  consequences. 

The  wedding,  for  example,  was  in  substance  a  sumptuous  feast. 
The  invitations  were  given  out  at  least  three  days  before  the  time, 
it  being  considered  an  affront  to  receive  one  only  one  day  previous. 


44  SCOTCH-IKISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

At  the  appointed  hour  the  groom  proceeded  from  his  dwelling  with 
his  select  friends,  male  and  female  ,w  about  half  way  on  their  journey 
to  the  house  of  the  bride,  they  were  met  by  the  bride's  select  male 
friends ;  and,  on  meeting,  each  of  the  two  companies  made  choice  of 
one  of  their  number  "  to  run  for  the  bottle  "  to  the  bride's  house. 
The  champion  of  the  race  who  reached  the  well-filled  bottle  first, 
and  returned  with  it,  gave  a  toast,  drank  to  the  bridegroom's  health, 
and  having  passed  the  bottle  fully  round,  the  united  company  pro 
ceeded  to  the  residence  of  the  bride.  When  arrived  there,  the 
religious  and  other  services  did  not  differ  essentially  from  those 
common  now  at  domestic  weddings ;  but  the  ceremony  being  con 
cluded,  the  whole  company  sat  down  to  the  entertainment,  at  which 
the  "best  man"  and  "best  maid"  presided.  Then  the  room  was 
cleared  for  dances  and  other  amusements ;  the  "  flow  "  was  kept  up, 
and  the  "  floor  "  was  kept  cleared ;  and  an  aged  narrator,  about  the 
beginning  of  this  century,  kindling  at  the  recollection  of  scenes  then 
for  him  all  gone  by,  concluded  his  account  of  the  ancient  wedding, 
"  and  the  evening  was  spent  with  a  degree  of  pleasure  of  which  our 
modern  fashionables  are  perfectly  ignorant ! " 

When  death  entered  a  Scotch-Irish  community  in  the  olden  time 
in  New  England,  and  one  anywise  prominent  was  removed,  there 
was  at  once  a  cessation  of  all  labor  in  the  neighborhood.  The  people 
gathered  at  the  house  of  mourning,  and  proceeded  night  after  night 
to  observe  a  custom  which  they  had  brought  with  them  from  Ireland 
(whether  it  be  more  Irish  than  Scottish,  if  there  is  any  difference 
of  m'eaning  between  these  epithets  in  this  connection,  it  were  vain 
to  speculate)  called  the  "  wake,"  or  watching  with  the  dead,  until 
the  interment  had  taken  place.  These  night  scenes,  as  at  the 
present  time  wherever  kept  up,  often  exhibited  a  mixture  of  serious 
ness  and  frivolity,  of  religion  and  deviltry,  to  the  last  degree  gro 
tesque  and  incompatible.  The  Scriptures  would  be  solemnly  read, 
long  prayers  would  be  offered,  and  words  of  counsel  and  admonition 
administered  to  the  mourning  circle ;  but  before  long,  according  to 
established  usage,  the  glass,  with  its  exhilarating  and  intoxicating 
beverage,  must  circulate  freely  and  repeatedly ;  so  that,  before  the 
dawn,  the  joke  and  the  laugh,  if  not  scenes  more  boisterous  and 
bewildering,  would  break  in  upon  the  slumbers  of  the  dead. 

The  assemblage  was  sure  to  be  large  in  all  the  Scotch-Irish  settle 
ments,  whatever  might  have  been  the  age  or  character  or  worldly 
condition  of  the  party  deceased,  at  the  funeral  services.  Every 
relative,  however  distant  the  connection,  must  surely  be  present,  or 
it  would  be  regarded  as  a  marked  neglect ;  and  it  was  expected  also 


SCOTCH-HUSH  usr  NEW  ENGLAND.  45 

that  all  the  friends  and  acquaintance  of  the  deceased  within  a 
reasonable  distance  of  the  home  would  be  in  attendance.  Funeral 
sermons  were  rarely  or  never  delivered  upon  the  occasion,  yet  there 
would  usually  be  as  large  a  congregation  as  assembled  on  the  Sab 
bath.  Previous  to  the  prayer  ardent  spirit  was  always  handed 
round,  not  only  to  the  mourners  and  bearers,  but  also  to  the  entire 
assembly.  Again  after  prayer,  and  before  the  coffin  was  removed, 
the  same  thing  was  repeated.  Nearly  all  would  follow  the  body  to 
the  grave,  and  usually  the  greater  number  walked.  Processions 
from  a  third  to  one-half  a  mile  in  length  were  not  infrequent  in 
Londonderry  at  the  burial  of  an  ordinary  citizen.  On  their  return 
to  the  house,  the  demoralizing  draught  was  again  administered  to 
all,  and  a  further  edible  entertainment  provided.  Many  a  poor 
family  became  embarrassed,  if  not  absolutely  impoverished,  in  con 
sequence  of  the  heavy  expenses  incurred,  not  so  much  by  the  sick 
ness  which  preceded  the  death  of  one  of  its  members,  as  by  the 
funeral  ceremonies  as  then  and  there  observed,  required,  as  they 
foolishly  supposed,  by  respect  for  the  dead. 

c.  In  the  third  place,  it  was  a  pleasing  and  remarkable  trait  of 
these  people,  that  they  knew  how  to  put  things  in  a  humorous  and 
witty  and  even  sarcastic  dress.  It  was  natural  to  them.  They 
could  do  it  well,  and  therefore  they  liked  to  do  it.  They  were  mar- 
velously  quick  at  repartee.  Of  course  their  brogue  was  a  great  help 
to  them  here,  because  it  intensified  the  sense  of  incongruity,  which 
seems  to  be  of  the  essence  of  merriment.  Subjectively  they  relished 
the  sense  of  the  grotesque  and  incongruous,  and  objectively  their 
art  and  their  brogue  helped  them  to  magnify  it.  Rev.  Dr.  Morrison 
once  delivered  an  election  sermon  before  the  New  Hampshire  legis 
lature,  which  proved  incisive  and  effective ;  the  body  voted  to  print 
a  specified  number  of  copies,  when  a  witty  member  (appreciating 
this  point)  moved  to  substitute  an  additional  number,  "provided 
they  would  also  print  the  brogue." 

The  ministers  were  particularly  skilled  as  between  each  other  in 
humorous  attack  and  retort.  It  was  the  one  chief  relief  from  the 
soberness  and  intensity  of  their  lives.  For  example,  two  of  these 
clergymen  were  walking  along  together  on  an  icy  road.  Suddenly 
one  of  them  slipped,  and  fell  flat.  Eev.  Upright  eyed  his  brother 
for  a  moment  solemnly,  and  quoted :  "  The  wicked  stand  in  slippery 
places."  Instantly  retorted  Eev.  Prostrate,  "I  see  they  do,  but  I 
can't."  William  Stinson,  born  in  Ireland,  came  to  Londonderry  with 
his  father  while  still  very  young.  Thence  he  migrated  to  Dunbar- 
ton,  N.  H.,  where  he  lived  alone  in  his  log-house,  destitute  of  most 


46  SCOTCH-IKISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

of  the  conveniences  of  domestic  life,  and  laid  there  and  thus  the 
foundations  of  a  large  fortune  for  the  time.  Rev.  David  McGregor, 
of  Londonderry,  called  on  him  there  (they  had  been  boys  together), 
and  dined  with  him.  Not  having  a  table,  or  anything  that  would 
answer  for  a  better  substitute,  Brother  Stinson  was  obliged  to  make 
use  of  a  bushel  basket  placed  bottom-side  upward.  Both  were  grate 
ful  beforehand  for  the  frugal  meal  frugally  served,  and  Rev.  Mr. 
McGregor,  being  asked,  of  course,  to  solicit  the  divine  blessing, 
pertinently  and  devoutly  implored  that  his  host  might  be  blessed 
"in  his  basket  and  his  store."  This  was  literally  verified  in  the 
time  to  come  ! 

Rev.  Matthew  Clark,  who  carried  to  his  grave  an  unhealed  wound 
from  a  sword-cut  received  in  the  siege  of  Derry,  was  accustomed, 
even  to  old  age,  and  even  in  the  pulpit,  to  quick  and  witty  turns, 
which  we  must  suppose  were  very  effective.  At  any  rate,  they  are 
very  interesting  to  us,  accustomed  as  we  are,  more  or  less,  to  dull 
preaching.  The  old  cavalry  captain  with  the  black  patch  over  his 
eye-brow  was  preaching  one  day  on  the  over-confidence  of  Peter,  that 
he  would  never  deny  his  Lord,  and  his  subsequent  humiliating  fall, 
and  remarked :  "  Just  like  Peter,  aye  mair  forrit  than  wise,  ganging 
swaggering  about  wi'  a  sword  at  his  side ;  an'  a  puir  han'  he  mad'  o' 
it  when  he  cam'  to  the  trial,  for  he  only  cut  off  a  duel's  lug,  an'  he 
ought  to  ha'  split  down  his  head  ! " 

This  same  old  warrior  of  God  is  said  also  to  have  commenced  a 
discourse  from  Philippians  4,  13,  in  the  following  startling  manner : 
" '  I  can  do  all  things.'  Ay,  can  ye,  Paul  ?  I'll  bet  ye  a  dollar  o' 
that  (placing  a  Spanish  milled  dollar  upon  the  desk).  Stop!  let's 
see  what  else  Paul  says :  '  I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ,  which 
strengthened  me.'  Ay,  sae  can  I,  Paul ;  I  draw  my  bet,"  and  he 
thereupon  returned  the  dollar  to  his  pocket ! 

This  gift  of  enlivening  humor,  so  common  and  so  much  cultivated 
among  them,  afforded  a  much-needed  relief  to  their  isolated  lives 
upon  their  slovenly -kept  farms,  and  afforded  a  relief  also  to  their 
usually  downright  arid  dogmatic  expression  of  their  opinions.  They 
were  open  and  above-board  in  all  their  opinions  and  in  all  their  talk. 
They  did  not  back-bite  with  their  tongues.  There  was  biting,  a 
plenty  of  it,  but  it  was  in  a  forward  movement,  fronting  the  oppo 
nent,  whoever  he  was.  Subterraneanism  was  something  these  people 
abhorred.  If  any  one  had  a  ground  of  complaint  against  another, 
or,  what  was  much  the  same  thing,  if  he  supposed  he  had,  his  method 
of  procedure  was  not  like  that  of  besieging  castles  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  by  gradual  approaches,  but,  on  the  contrary,  was  exceedingly 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  47 

direct  and  personal.  The  party  of  the  second  part  was  pretty  sure 
to  be  the  first  one  to  hear  of  the  grievance,  and  of  the  quick  feelings 
excited  by  it.  They  seemed  to  like  to  fight  their  own  battles  directly, 
and  rarely  enlisted  substitutes  !  They  were  a  pugnacious  people 
among  themselves,  these  Scotch-Irish.  Their  views  were  mostly 
definite,  and  sharpened  to  a  point.  There  was  a  wholesome  breezi- 
ness  among  them  that  is  refreshing  to  look  back  upon.  They  were 
fond  of  regarding  the  Christian  course  under  St.  Paul's  favorite 
figure  of  a  warfare ;  whatever  else  they  failed  to  do,  they  meant  to 
fight  a  good  fight,  and  to  keep  the  faith  once  delivered  to  them  — 
the  present  saints.  But  in  all  this  their  ever-present  sense  of  humor, 
and  their  ability  to  bring  it  to  bear  in  extremities,  was  not  only  a 
relief  to  their  pig-headed  dogmatism,  but  was  also  a  constant  restraint 
and  antidote  to  it. 

And  yet,  what  seems  at  first  blush  to  be  incompatible  with  what 
has  just  been  said,  it  was  a  very  common  trait  of  these  peculiar 
people  to  maintain  a  sort  of  secrecy  or  clandestinism  in  matters 
neutral  to  religion  and  politics,  in  matters  personal  and  indifferent, 
that  stood  in  strange  contrast  to  their  utter  frankness  and  unreserve 
in  those  things  which  they  deemed  cardinal.  They  seem  to  have 
caught  beforehand,  and  to  have  practiced  from  generation  to  genera 
tion,  the  spirit  of  Burns's  strain  : 

"  Conceal  yersel'  as  weel's  you  can 

Frae  critical  dissection  ; 
But  keek  through  every  ither  man 
Wi'  sharpened  sly  inspection  ! 

"  Ay  free,  aff  han'  your  story  tell, 

When  wi'  a  bosom  crony  ; 
But  still  keep  something  to  yersel' 
Ye'll  scarcely  say  to  ony  !  " 

Somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  these  two  traits,  which  seem 
themselves  to  be  the  opposites  of  each  other,  there  lay  another  char 
acteristic  of  this  tribe,  what  might  almost  be  called  in  Bacon's  phrase 
an  idol  of  the  tribe,  —  a  persistent  capacity  to  hold  a  grudge  !  I  will 
not  philosophize  upon  this,  though  I  am  certain  of  it  as  a  fact.  To 
forgive  and  forget  an  injury,  real  or  supposed,  a  grace  hard  enough 
of  attainment  for  any  Christian  anywhere,  God  knows,  and  we  know, 
was  especially  hard  for  these  half-Celtic  and  half-Saxon  believers  in 
and  imitators  of  the  blessed  Lord.  We  need  to  make  no  reference 
here  to  the  old  historic  feuds,  Highland  or  Lowland  —  we  are  not 
sure  as  that  would  have  any  relevancy;  but  any  analysis  of  the 


48  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND. 

character  of  the  New  England  Scotch-Irish,  however  cursory,  in  con 
trast  with  the  English  Puritans  alongside  of  whom  they  lived  and 
labored,  would  be  faulty  and  out  of  the  true,  that  did  not  call  a  pass 
ing  attention  to  a  characteristic  of  them,  both  men  and  women  —  a 
characteristic  which  has  come  down  within  the  observation  of  those 
still  living  —  a  tendency  to  hold  together  and  re-knit  at  intervals 
the  strong  fibers  of  a  grudge,  a  prejudice,  a  misconception;  fibers 
late  and  last  to  be  fused  in  the  blessed  fires  of  Christian  discipline 
and  -holy  love ! 

d.  And  this  brings  us,  in  the  fourth  place,  to  some  peculiarities 
in  the  religious  conceptions  and  experience  of  these  good  people 
which  may  prove  instructive  and  illuminating  to  us  to  whom  these 
ends  of  the  world  have  come.  John  Knox  had  adjusted  for  their 
simple  eye-sight  all  the  glasses  in  the  long  tube,  pointed  for  them 
toward  Geneva  and  John  Calvin,  whenever  they  wished  to  take 
their  bearings  from  the  east,  and  to  renew  the  grounds  and  the  pro 
portions  of  the  famous  Five  Points ;  and,  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
perform  the  impossible  task  so  often  undertaken  to  no  purpose,  to 
conform  their  lives  in  simple  faith  and  love  to  the  still,  small  voice, 
and  to  settle  themselves  theologically  four-square  and  impregnable. 
Of  course  there  was  something  grotesque  in  this  attempted  combina 
tion,  and  of  course  there  was  something  sublime  in  it.  John  Calvin 
was  only  twenty-six  years  old  when  he  wrote  or  sketched  his  famous 
"  Institutes  of  Theology."  Oh  !  that  he  had  waited  twenty-five  years 
longer,  and  learned,  as  he  certainly  would  have  done,  that  men  are 
made  in  the  image  of  God  in  other  respects  also,  as  well  as  in  a 
tendency  to  an  inflexible  logic-handling  of  data  imperfectly  under 
stood  !  This  would  have  saved  our  morbidly  conscientious  ancestors 
from  much  that  appears  to  us  insane  and  ridiculous ;  and,  let  it  be 
confessed,  would  have  prevented  them  also  from  undertaking  much 
that  proved  great  and  enduring. 

The  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  of  New  England  were  in  bondage 
to  the  "letter,"  and  the  "Emancipation  Proclamation"  has  not  even 
yet  been  read  and  pondered  and  joyfully  accepted  by  many  of  their 
descendants.  Contrary  to  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul,  who  was  and  is 
the  evangelist  of  the  whole  circle,  they  "served  in  the  oldness  of  the 
letter  and  not  in  the  newness  of  the  spirit."  They  did  not  find  out 
what  this  meaneth  even  from  the  lips  of  their  own  preferred  teacher 
—  "  the  letter  killeth  but  the  spirit  giveth  life."  There  was  accord 
ingly,  a  hardness  and  a  formality  in  their  religious  lives  and  actions, 
in  striking  contrast  with  the  relative  freedom  and  love  and  spirit  of 
the  best  Christians  of  our  own  times,  who  may  themselves  have  come 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  49 

out  from  the  rigid  lines  and  mailed  loins  of  these  saints  and  soldiers 
of  the  Middle  Age. 

The  cases  of  church  discipline,  many  of  which  have  come  down  to 
us  by  way  of  record,  turned  for  the  most  part  not  on  the  absence  of 
brotherly  love  and  the  spirit  of  mutual  helpfulness,  which  are  of  the 
essence  of  Christianity,  but  on  some  miserable  technicality,  some 
formal  violation  of  an  external  rite  or  usage  of  the  church.  For 
example,  the  Thursday  before  communion  was  a  fast  day,  and  kept 
with  all  the  rigidity  and  punctilio  of  a  Jewish  Sabbath.  A  complaint 
was  brought  against  a  member  of  the  church  of  Londonderry,  for 
spreading  out  grain  to  dry  on  such  a  Thursday  —  the  grain  was 
ready  to  spoil  for  lack  of  the  sun  shining  in  his  strength  —  and  he 
was  duly  and  solemnly  admonished  by  the  session.  In  1734,  we  find 
a  complaint  against  John  Morrison,  brought  by  Archibald  Stark,  that 
the  former,  having  found  an  axe  in  the  road,  "  did  not  leave  it  at  the 
next  tavern  as  the  laws  of  the  country  doth  require  "  ;  and  though 
Morrison  acknowledged  the  fact,  and  plead  that  the  axe  was  of  so 
small  value  that  it  would  not  quit  the  costs  of  legally  proclaiming 
it,  yet  he  was  severely  censured  by  the  session,  "and  exhorted  to 
repent  of  the  evil." 

The  cheap  metallic  pieces,  called  "tokens/7  which  entitled  the 
bearer  without  question  to  the  privileges  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  came 
to  have  a  factitious  and  even  superstitious  value  set  upon  them  by 
the  holders,  as  if  St.  Peter  himself,  at  the  gate  of  heaven,  must 
instantly  recognize  the  validity  of  those  dirty  bits  of  brass  stamped 
with  the  initials  of  the  church.  Amid  so  much  that  was  outer  and 
formal  and  Jewish  and  rectangular,  there  is  of  necessity  lacking  the 
sweeter  and  gentler  virtues,  the  noiseless  charity,  the  reaching  out 
to  one  another  the  hands  which  are  felt,  not  seen.  All  the  rain 
from  heaven  seemed  to  come  in  great  showers  in  the  day-time,  and 
there  was  less  of  the  refreshing  and  universal  dew,  the  gift  of  the 
night,  found  often  on  the  under-side  of  the  blade  and  the  leaf  and; 
the  flower. 

The  bolder  and  sterner  virtues  of  the  Christian  character  were 
those  present — the  vigilance  of  the  watchman  on  the  walls  of  Zion, 
the  valor  of  the  desperate  onset  summoned  by  the  trumpet  of  Jeho 
vah,  the  tirelessness  of  the  strong  reaper  in  the  hot  harvest-field,  the 
dying  cry  of  the  born  general,  sleepless  and  intent,  "Tete  d'arm^e!" 
But  alas !  for  the  onesidedness  of  the  best  human  life  5  alas !  for  the 
temptation  that  lurks  the  nearest  to  the  noblest  virtue ;  alas  !  for 
the  exhibition  of  what  is  devilish  in  apparently  vital  connection 
with  what  is  divine.  So  here.  Our  fathers  were  heresy-hunters. 


50  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN    NEW   ENGLAND. 

They  revered  a  shibboleth.  They  only  could  guard  aright  the  ark 
of  God.  They  thought  themselves  to  be  vicegerents.  They  fell 
into  the  sin  of  condemning  their  brethren,  for  whom  Christ  died. 

"  The  Truth's  worst  foe  is  he  who  claims 

To  act  as  God's  avenger ; 
And  dreams  beyond  his  sentry  beat 
The  crystal  walls  in  danger ! 

"  Who  sets  for  heresy  his  traps 

Of  verbal  quirk  and  quibble ; 
And  weeds  the  Garden  of  the  Lord 
With  Satan's  borrowed  dibble." 

I  may  be  wrong  in  this,  but  it  is  my  deliberate  judgment,  that 
the  English  Pilgrims  of  the  Old  Colony  and  their  descendants,  and 
the  original  Puritans  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  and  their  children, 
fallible  and  narrow  and  one-sided  and  bigoted  and  uncharitable  as 
they  all  were,  nevertheless  represented  on  the  whole,  in  an  age 
equally  adverse  to  them  all,  a  sweeter  and  better  and  truer  spirit  in 
their  lives  than  the  more  highly  organized  and  more  historically 
connected  Christians  whose  blessed  memories  we  strive  to  keep 
alive  to-day. 

However  this  may  be,  one  thing  is  certain,  New  England  has 
proved  to  the  last  degree  inhospitable  to  Presbyterianism  as  a  form 
of  church  administration.  Established  over  and  over  again  in  Maine, 
in  New  Hampshire,  and  in  fewer  numbers  in  Massachusetts,  renewed 
over  and  over  again  when  decayed  and  moribund,  the  presbyteries 
have  run  one  steady  and  inevitable  course  toward  extinction.  There 
is  one  nominal  presbytery  in  New  England  to-day  doing  duty  only 
on  the  official  records  of  the  church,  denominated  "  Boston,"  but  it 
was  utterly  unrepresented  in  the  General  Assembly  last  week  at 
Saratoga.  It  has  a  name  to  live,  but  it  is  dead. 

Something  corresponding  with  what  the  evolutionists  style  "  en 
vironment  "  must  be  the  explanation  of  this  most  striking  and  reit 
erated  phenomenon.  What  is  there  in  New  England  that  is  so  fatal 
to  the  Presbyterian  form?  A  good  word  is  oftentimes  a  harbor  of 
refuge  to  the  perplexed  and  baffled  inquirer.  Presbyterianism  came 
to  us  early ;  it  came  strong ;  it  reinforced  itself  from  time  to  time 
with  new  and  large  recruits,  but  it  could  not  root  in  Yankee  land. 
What  has  been  the  matter  ?  I  answer,  environment,  whatever  that 
may  mean.  The  Plymouth  people,  from  1620  and  onward,  were 
obliged  to  take  to  independence  in  church  government,  whether  they 
willed  or  nilled ;  ten  years  later  and  onward,  John  Winthrop  and 


SCOTCH-IRISH    IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  51 

his  learned  ministers  in  Charlestown,  Cambridge,  and  Boston,  drank 
in  from  the  salt  marshes  and  Massachusetts  Bay  long  whiffs  of  what 
afterward  came  to  be  called  Congregationalism ;  Eoger  Williams 
inhaled  the  same  sort  of  air  in  Salem,  and  liked  the  oxygen  of  it, 
and  carried  it  in  stout  lungs  to  Providence,  to  become  the  breath  of 
life  to  the  Baptists,  a  vast  congeries  of  independent  churches ;  the 
molds  got  set  in  New  England ;  self-governed  churches  took  the  bits 
in  their  teeth  one  by  one;  and  when,  in  1718,  the  Presbyterians 
came  to  Boston,  and  triangulated  themselves  at  Worcester,  London 
derry,  and  Wiscasset,  they  established  their  own  forms  at  the  two 
latter  places  without  let  or  hindrance,  but  the  opposition  at  Worces 
ter  was  significant ;  and  the  whole  trend  and  drift  of  things  —  in 
short,  the  environment  —  was  and  has  continued  such,  that,  proud 
of  their  fathers  of  every  name,  and  thankfully  accepting  the  tribute 
from  every  land,  New  England  people  believe  in  and  will  uphold  the 
independent  government  of  their  churches,  each  for  and  by  itself. 

e.  In  the  last  place,  we  must  note  the  social  and  political  tenden 
cies  and  peculiarities  of  the  Scotch-Irish  in  New  England.  It  is 
here  that  the  main  lesson  comes  in.  It  is  here  that  their  impress 
has  been  deepest  and  best.  It  is  along  this  line  that  we  can  clearly 
trace  their  footsteps  from  the  first,  and  see  their  lasting  influence  to 
this  day.  There  is  no  careful  investigation  but  brings  its  surprises. 
There  is  no  genuine  study  of  aggregate  men  whose  results  do  not 
display  apparent  contradictions  at  some  point.  It  is  so  with  our 
folks.  They  were  zealous  Presbyterians,  and  that  system  implies 
authority  and  subordination ;  the  simple  church  member  is  under 
the  direction  of  the  session  to  an  extent  unknown  in  independent 
churches ;  the  session  is  a  part  of  the  presbytery,  and  is  controlled 
by  it ;  and  all  the  presbyteries  are  under  the  legislative  domination 
of  the  general  assembly.  The  system  involves,  therefore,  higher 
and  lower  in  church  authority  ;  it  involves  rank  in  a  certain  sense, 
and  it  would  not  seem  to  be  favorable  to  individualism  in  rights  and 
power.  Each  intermediate  grade,  like  the  centurion  in  the  Gospel, 
says  :  "  I  also  am  a  man  under  authority,  having  soldiers  under  me." 

We  should  expect  beforehand,  accordingly,  that  these  people 
would  be  no  great  sticklers  for  individual  rights  in  politics,  and  no 
very  sharp  opponents  of  that  insidious  privilege,  which  is  all  the 
while  stealing  a  march  on  the  rights  of  the  masses,  and  creating  by 
law  or  usage  privileged  classes,  lower  and  higher,  polite  plunderers, 
and  perhaps  unconscious  plundered.  Sir  Thomas  More  wrote  of  the 
England  of  his  time,  and  it  is  just  as  true  of  the  United  States  in 
each  and  every  decade  of  the  first  century  of  the  constitution  :  "  The 


52  SCOTCH-IRISH   IN    NEW   ENGLAND. 

rich,  are  ever  striving  to  pare  away  something  further  from  the  daily 
wages  of  the  poor  by  private  fraud,  and  even  by  public  law,  so  that 
the  wrong  already  existing,  for  it  is  a  wrong  that  those  from  whom 
the  state  derives  most  benefit  should  receive  the  least  reward,  is 
made  yet  greater  by  means  of  the  law  of  the  state.  The  rich  devise 
every  means  by  which  they  may  in  the  first  place  secure  to  them 
selves  what  they  have  amassed  by  wrong,  and  then  take  to  their 
own  use  and  profit,  at  the  lowest  possible  price,  the  work  and  labor 
of  the  poor.  And  so  soon  as  the  rich  decide  on  adopting  these 
devices  in  the  name  of  the  public,  then  they  become  law." 

On  the  contrary,  rather  in  contrast  with  the  Puritans,  who,  speak 
ing  generally,  seem  to  have  felt  no  repugnance  to  distinctions  and 
privileges  for  themselves  and  their  own,  either  in  church  or  state, 
these  Scotch-Irish  citizens,  as  a  rule,  manifested  a  working  instinct, 
if  not  a  trained  principle,  favorable  to  equality  of  opportunity  for 
all  men  under  the  law,  and  hostile  to  special  privileges  to  any,  and 
especially  privileges  to  some  at  the  expense  of  the  rest.  As  the  two 
great  simple  elements  of  our  domestic  national  politics  were  slowly 
formulating  themselves  under  the  administration  of  Washington  — 
the  two  simple  elements  which  have  dominated  our  national  politics 
ever  since,  and  served  as  the  one  stable  foundation  of  our  two  politi 
cal  parties  —  our  tribe  in  New  England  sided  with  Jefferson  in  his 
pronounced  views  of  state  rights  in  opposition  to  centralization,  and 
of  equality  in  opposition  to  privilege.  Jefferson's  religious  views, 
as  they  were  represented  in  New  England,  were  enormously  unpop 
ular  among  all  classes;  but  the  instinct, -if  not  the  intelligence,  of 
the  Scotch-Irish,  led  them  to  general  approval  of  his  political  propo 
sitions  ;  and  as  time  went  on  and  the  results  were  brought  into  relief, 
they  ranged  themselves  generally  under  the  Democratic  banners, 
particularly  in  New  Hampshire  and  that  part  of  Massachusetts 
which  is  now  Maine. 

Hamilton's  opposite  construction  of  equality  of  rights,  and  of 
national  powers  as  over  against  the  states,  found  greatly  more  favor 
among  the  Puritan  merchants  of  the  bay,  and  among  the  Congrega 
tional  clergy  generally,  than  among  the  farmers '  and  citizens  of 
Presbyterian  antecedents.  The  father  of  the  late  "Long  Jim" 
Wilson,  of  Peterborough,  N.  H.,  was  a  Federalist,  and  his  more  distin 
guished  son  was  a  Whig,  which  means  the  same  thing ;  and  if  his 
son,  the  brave  General  Wilson  of  our  late  civil  war  be  a  Republican, 
as  I  infer  from  heredity  only,  that  means  the  same  thing  too.  The 
Wilson  family  in  successive  generations  has  been  distinguished  on 
many  grounds  and  in  many  members,  but  the  mere  fact,  that  the 


SCOTCH-IRISH   IN   NEW 


r;^  53 


Federalism  of  the  ancestor  is  noted  in  Scotch-Irish  records,  empha 
sizes  the  other  fact,  that  the  greater  part  of  his  compeers  took  the 
other  view.  When  I  was  a  boy  in  ]STew  Hampshire,  I  used  to  hear 
"  Long  Jim  "  harangue  Whig  audiences  on  the  efficacy  of  Whig  doc 
trines  with  apparently  tremendous  effect;  but  when  the  election 
day  came  round,  even  in  the  universal  fervor  of  1840,  the  rank  and 
file  of  Democratic  yeomen  rallied  unbroken  majorities  against  privi 
lege  and  centralization.  The  "  Granite  State  "  is  not  more  granite 
in  its  rocks  than  it  has  been,  and  will  be,  in  its  opposition  to  all 
schemes  of  whatever  color,  designed  to  rob  the  masses  of  men  for 
the  special  benefit  of  a  privileged  few,  and  those  designed  also  to 
make  top-heavy  and  unwieldy  the  central  structure  of  our  compli 
cated  government,  at  the  expense  of  the  older  and  safer  and  more 
responsive,  because  more  local,  seats  of  political  power. 

Samuel  Taggart  also,  born  in  Londonderry  in  1754,  minister  in 
Colerain,  Mass.,  for  forty-one  years,  1777-1818,  a  graduate  of  Dart 
mouth  College  in  1774,  a  man  of  gigantic  stature,  a  member  of 
Congress  from  a  district  of  Western  Massachusetts  for  seven  succes 
sive  terms,  1803-17,  was  nominally  a  Federalist,  yet  in  reality  and 
at  bottom,  like  most  of  the  rank  and  file  of  his  people  in  Massachu 
setts,  no  friend  of  privilege  and  centralization.  Indeed,  he  was  a 
typical  Scotch-Irishman.  He  was  a  politician  and  a  preacher  at  the 
same  time  and  among  the  same  people.  No  incongruity  suggested 
itself  as  between  these  functions  to  him  or  to  them.  They  steadily 
supported  him  in  both  relations,  and  he  faithfully  represented  them 
in  both.  "  Where  did  you  leave  those  few  sheep  in  the  wilderness  ?  " 
inquired  sarcastically  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  of  Taggart  on 
the  floor  of  the  House.  He  had  not  left  them.  He  thoroughly 
studied  his  colleagues  at  Washington  in  both  branches ;  read  his 
Bible  through  every  winter  he  was  there  ;  possessed  the  confidence 
of  Jefferson  and  Madison,  fellow  Scotch-Irish  from  Virginia,  during 
both  the  entire  presidential  terms  of  both,  though  he  did  not  go  to 
Washington  quite  early  enough  to  welcome  there,  and  probably 
would  not  have  heartily  welcomed  there,  Eev.  John  Leland,  his 
Baptist  brother,  when  he  took  on  the  mammoth  cheese  as  a  testimo 
nial  to  Jefferson  of  the  political  confidence  of  the  people  of  Cheshire, 
in  my  own  county  of  Berkshire.  Taggart  wrote  and  published,  on 
the  "Evidences  of  Christianity,"  on  "British  Impressments  from 
our  Marine,"  on  the  "  Final  Perseverance  of  the  Saints,"  and  many 
sermons  and  orations  and  addresses. 

Political  instinct  in  distinction  from  political  intelligence  in  the 
masses  of  our  countrymen,  and  particularly  in  the  masses  of  our 


54  SCOTCH-IRISH:  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

immigrants,  as  leading  them  to  unite  with  one  or  other  of  the  two 
great  parties,  each  holding  with  remarkable  continuity  on  the  whole 
the  tradition  of  its  origin  and  the  lines  of  its  demarcation,  has  not 
yet  received  the  attention  and  the  respect  from  our  public  men 
which  are  its  due.  Men  are  not  machines.  There  is  a  reason  in 
their  movements  as  well  in  their  aggregate  as  in  their  individual 
capacity.  And  when  the  curse  of  money  is  removed  from  its  cor 
rupting  place  at  or  near  our  ballot  boxes,  as  it  will  be,  it  will  then 
be  seen,  that  men  native  and  naturalized  choose  their  party  from 
impulses  and  impressions  only  partly  explicable  even  to  themselves  ; 
and  that  there  are  drifts  and  currents  God-impelled,  as  well  as  those 
distinctly  started  in  the  human  reason,  all  which  are  sweeping  on 

toward 

"  That  fair  future  day, 
Which  fate  shall  brightly  gild." 

In  conclusion,  let  me  mention  just  a  few  living  Scotch-Irish 
people  out  of  the  New  England  stock,  with  whom  I  chance  to  be 
acquainted  directly  or  indirectly,  whose  acquaintance  I  highly  prize, 
and  who  are  each  and  all  distinguished  in  their  sphere :  Hugh  Mc- 
Culloch,  born  and  bred  in  Maine,  known  and  honored  erf  all  men ; 
Charles  J.  McCurdy,  a  nonagenarian  jurist  of  Lyme,  Conn. ;  Manton 
Marble,  of  New  York ;  George  W.  Anderson,  of  Boston ;  Rev.  Dr. 
George  Mooar,  of  Oakland,  Cal. ;  Miss  Philena  McKeen,  Andover, 
Mass. ;  Mrs.  Gov.  Fairbanks,  St.  Johnsbury,  Vt. ;  Robert  C.  Mack, 
Londonderry,  N.  H. ;  Senator  Blair,  and  Congressman  Moore,  and 
Acting  Governor  Taggart,  all  of  New  Hampshire ;  Professor  L.  W. 
Spring,  of  Williams  College ;  Major  H.  B.  McClellan,  of  Kentucky, 
and  Henry  H.  Anderson,  of  New  York. 


SCOTCH-IRISH  IN   NEW   ENGLAND.  55 


PARTIAL  LIST   OF  AUTHORITIES. 


1.  Lincoln's  History  of  Worcester. 

2.  Wall's  Reminiscences  of  Worcester. 

3.  Worcester  Records  of  Births  and  Deaths. 

4.  Registry  of  Deeds,  Worcester. 

5.  Published  Inscriptions  on  Gravestones  in  Worcester. 

6.  Parker's  Londonderry,  N.  H. 

7.  State  Papers  of  New  Hampshire,  particularly  "Towns,"  vol.  14,  and 
"Muster-Rolls,"  vol.  2. 

8.  Communications  from  Robert  C.  Mack,  Londonderry,  N.  H. 

9.  Holland's  History  of  Western   Massachusetts,    "Colerain,"    "Bland- 
ford,"  "Pelham,"  and  passim. 

10.  History  of  Peterborough,  N.  H. 

11.  McKeen's  History  of  Bradford,  Vt. 

12.  Thompson's  Gazetteer  of  Vermont,  "Londonderry,"  "  Landgrove,"  etc. 

13.  Caleb  Stark's  Life  of  John  Stark. 

14.  American  Biography,  sub  verbis,  "Matthew  Thornton,"  "Asa  Gray," 
"Charles  J.  McCurdy,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

15.  Hugh  McCulloch's  "  Memorials  of  Half  a  Century." 

16.  Green's  "  Short  History  of  England,"  as  revised  by  Mrs.  Green. 


SCOTCH-IRISH  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


BY 


REV.  A.  L.  PERRY,  D.D.,  LL.D, 

PROFESSOR  or  HISTORY  AND  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  IN  WILLIAMS  COLLEGE, 

WlLLIAMSTOWN,  MASS. 


BOSTON : 

PRINTED  BY   J.    S.   GUSHING  &  CO. 
1891, 


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